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(See page 32) 


D’Artagnan’s Exploit 

("LOUIS TREIZE") 


BV 


ALEXANDRE DUMAS 

AUTHOR OF 

“d’artagnan, the king maker,” “all for a crown,” “the regal box,” 
“the king’s gallant,” “the count of monte CRISTO,” 

“the queen’s NECKLACE,” ETC., ETC. 


Translated and adapted from Alexandre 

“Louis Xlll. et Richelieu,” by HENRY LfwiLLIAMS 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

APR 9 1904 

Copyrieht Entry 

I ^ 0 4 ' 

CLASS 4. XXc. No. 

S' 4- O 0 "2- 

COPY B 


Copyright, 1904 
By STREET & SMITH 


D’Artagnan’s Exploit 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTER V PACE 

1. The House With No Odor of Sanctity . . . . 11 

IL After the Trippers-up of Horses, Those of Men . . 25 

in. The King — For the Rufflers 36 

IV. ‘‘The Disfigurers^' 52 

V. “No Death and No Devil Deters a True Knight ” . . 63 

VI. The Dying Bequest 73 

VII. In Which the Prince's Cheeks are Cuffed, But the Hand 

is Not Duly Forfeited 79 

VIII. Everybody's, Anybody's, and Nobody's Friend . . 94 

IX. Vanity's Parade Ground ...... 109 

X. A Viper Dying Exudes Venom . . . . .123 

XI. A Too-well-beloved Queen 132 

XII. In Which D'Artagnan Hopes the Second Invitation Will 

Induce a Longer Stay Than the First . . . 147 

XIII. It is Hard to Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon . . .156 

XIV. The Command to Athos 167 

XV. The Mission to Aramis 175 

XVI. In Which Are Detailed the Important Instructions Dele- 

gated on Porthos 185 

XVII. At the Old Stone Cross 198 

XVIIL In Which D'Artagnan is Met With Fire and Water . . 210 


ii CONTENTS 

CHAPTBR PACB 

XIX. Doors Are Not Made, For Some Persons . . . 219 

XX. The Conspiracy Comes Up Again 237 

XXL The Specter of the Louvre 248 

XXII. The Pallid Passion of a Shadowy King .... 261 

XXIII. Expiation by Deputy 274 

XXIV. In Which the Palace Phantoms Favor Our Hero With a 

Peep 293 

XXV. And the King is Acclaimed as a Loving Spouse . . 300 

XXVI. Some Make Arrests, Others Have Arrests Thrust Upon 

Them . . ' 305 


PREFA CE 


The France of the first quarter of the seventeenth 
century was clouded by the shade of the severe civil wars, 
and the mass sighed for peace at any cost. It was the 
man’s era — women were not prominent in politics and, 
unlike the grande mademoiselles of a later time, did not 
push themselves forward among clashing swords and be- 
fore the cannon mouth. In fact, except in town, there 
was no society possible. The high roads were few, tortu- 
ous and ill-kept. The main roads diverged to allow some 
nobleman to have his castle stand in the way. Bandits, 
unjust tax collectors and wild animals haunted the groves, 
and the peasants went armed against them, encouraged 
by the preservers of game. The web is a tangle of in- 
justice, privileges, caste, bribable magistrates, police used 
for private wrongs; a chaos of oppression, anarchy and 
spoliation. Royalty was like the bloated spider of ^ a 
hundred arms, basking in the sunshine, but having its 
golden thread stolen for others’ gain. Rebellion was or- 
ganized for selfish ends, and to satisfy petty feuds; and 
while there was little justice, there were uncounted 
justices. 

Since the assassination of King Henry the Fourth of 
France (i6io), the statesmen who misgoverned his 
country had allowed France to wallow in the blood and 
mire for thirty years. In this dreariness came Cardinal 
Richelieu into his reign — reign, not rule, for^ he was 
above the nominal administrator. King Louis XIII. 
(1601-1643) — to make it the shining keystone of the 
European empires. 

This story must needs be enthralling when its action 
is interwoven with the superlative events of this epoch. 
The proud peerage was to be abased, the quarrelsome 
sects reduced and pacified, the political parties curbed, 
and the rapacious house of Austria made to cower. 


ii 


PREFA CE 


''D’Artagnan’s Exploit,” being in Dumas’ happiest, 
lucid vein, makes clear how Richelieu cropped the nobles 
like flaunting poppies when they made head against his 
policy as a leveler, that the royalty might be elevated su- 
preme. This vigorous and invigorating work reveals the 
captivating muscles of a most merciless plot. Its object, 
the cardinal minister, baffles its leader. Count Chalais, 
though he was leagued with the court, the young and the 
old queens, and even the king, who sometimes sought to 
lid himself of his “Old Man of the See” 

Here we have Alexandre Dumas show himself the 
story teller pre-eminent. With what grace and prodi- 
gality, like another Prospero, he evokes the grand, guile- 
ful, exuberant spirits of that admirable past! This is 
Cardinal Richelieu,, the militant — in full ardor of action 
and copious energy — in canonicals and also in war armor, 
proving that the sword in competent hands is powerful 
as the pen. 

The archives are moldering and the ink faded whence 
Dumas drew his foundation ; but he does not pause in the 
study, but presses upon the field, where he displays the 
man — as plainly on the street as the throne, in the thicket 
as the palace. 

But a chief, though a prodigious genius, cannot alone 
carry out his colossal conceptions; nothing better attests 
surpassing merit than its choice of aids. To have his 
gigantic missions suitably performed he seeks a lieuten- 
ant, and finds him in Louis D’Artagnan. D’Artagnan, 
gay and gallant, caustic and cavalier, not always fortu- 
nate, but never downcast ; thinking with swiftness and 
striking with directness, the foremost of the beloved 
heroes who exact affection. For they are, everyone in 
Dumas, inspired with honest fellow feeling. The Gascon 
has the patience and the skill to undo knots, but it saves 
so much time to — “Out, good blade! and cut them!” 

This is at the outset of D'Artagnan’s consistent career : 
Richelieu had seen his promise at the La Rochelle siege 
(1627), and appointed him officer in the Elite Royal 
Musketeers’ Regiment. As these pages illustrate, D’Ar- 
tagnan served him gratefully as well as intelligently. By 
this capable instrument, the great governor crushes the 


PREFA CE 


iii 


terrible plot, charging D’Artagnan with the chase, cap- 
ture and guard of the prime rebel — the crowning 
exploit. 

Dumas is fond of Cardinal Richelieu. Imagine a 
Shakespeare purely a politician — it is Richelieu, in Du- 
mas’ eyes. Contradictory and clashing passions amalga- 
mate in him to make a perfect genius. In his fecund 
career (1624-1642), a crammed twenty years, Richelieu 
squandered genius, talents, the country’s treasures, her 
men, her resources, to maintain a power more arduously 
retained than shrewdly obtained. Cunning yet audacious, 
vindictive as a woman or a churchman, yet clement, sar- 
castic, but merry in his scant idle hours, susceptible yet 
steeled, he could stoop to persuade the obdurate, but 
would trample on the innocent. A soldier’s son, he wore 
the prelate’s robe with dignity. He grasped wealth but 
to advance his followers more than his family ; he blended 
his steps with the commonweal’s so that both rose to- 
gether. He might have been the most infamous of volup- 
tuaries, but — as witness the France he left glorious at his 
death ! — his spirit was harnessed to restless labor. 

And yet this zealous minister was not upheld by his 
king; never was a favorite so neglected by his master. 

This master (?), Louis XHI. — a puppet with water, 
and not even honest brawn inside — vaguely felt that Riche- 
lieu was his motor. He spun around on the state machine 
like the ^‘governor,” but, like that, was far from the power 
that whirled the wheels and drove the rod. Feeble, 
treacherous, fixed in his few resolves by inertia, he was 
that wayward hound rambling off to “try a new master,” 
but always returning to the old home. 

The chameleon premier and the phantom monarch were 
surrounded by a court inimical — turbulent, greedy, old 
plotters and their young dupes. For a king impassioned 
for the chase, female beauties and conversational charms 
were as smoke. So the parasites are amiable rather than 
amorous, and more versed in midnight cabals than love 
trysts. They wore swords by right, but they used the 
dagger and the poison bowl by liking. The leading spirit 
was logically the king’s dissolute brother, Gascon, envy- 
ing — hating his senior, and dreaming of some one bolder 


iv 


PREFA CE 


stealing the crown for him — the supple, submining, shal- 
low Duke of Orleans. 

In those times, people only cared to live — they grieved 
often, laughed but little, and stepped aside when the car 
of state or the private chariot rolled their way; now we 
wish to live long, laugh a good deal and grieve not at all ! 
We wish to learn without tedium. So, Dumas in this, 
as in his other works, convenes with our taste. He does 
not require inconvenient reading up ; he excludes the dust 
on the wheels of great events. His bundle of data bristles 
with attractions only; his comparisons are broad and his 
explanations terse and startling. He knows that those 
memoirs which ordinary novelists employ are but what 
the writers wished to mask in ; he has a passion for mys- 
tery and does not stint it — but he elucidates. His ghost 
is something tangible within the transparent shroud. 
When he goes into the unlit aisles, under the cobwebbed 
vaults, into deep-set closets, it is to wake slumbering 
echoes, to repeat love secrets, mighty schemes, brave 
deeds, and fiery speeches audible through his megaphone. 
Where history was mute, he finds the voice — where it 
was a blank, he brings out the sunk-in tear, the underly- 
ing signature, the blood spot which denounces the guilty; 
where the contemporary saw glitter, he points to crime ! 

Usually you recall the principal stalking horses of his- 
torical tales as so many starched togas or inflated bom- 
bast, helmets hollow as in “Otranto,” but Dumas’ char- 
acters come as figures animating council boards, throne 
rooms, battlefields, clandestine crypts ; real swords flash in 
knitted fists, and you see the sparks fly! 

The perusal of “D’Artagnan’s Exploit” will affirm the 
London Times' criticism of our author: “Dumas was 
almost the only French novelist of eminence who wrote as 
if he had no end in view beyond the telling of an inter- 
esting, moving and amusing story.” H. L. W. 


D'ARTAGNAN’S EXPLOIT. 


CHAPTER 1 . 

THE HOUSE WITH NO ODOR OF SANCTITY. 

History is depicted with a torch in her hand. She 
usually holds this light so high up that the rays strike 
only on the high points. Plains and vales are lost in the 
twilight and the darkness ; still more surely the precipices 
escape. 

Now what epoch in French history is so full of preci- 
pices as King Louis XIII.’s reign — or, as we ought to say, 
the reign of Armand Duplessis, cardinal-duke, and, de- 
cidedly, the first man in France? 

Let us, then, light our lantern by history’s torch and 
go down into the deepest abysses, if we must. 

***** ^ ^ 

It was the third decade of 1600. At a time approaching 
the middle of the forenight, a passenger paused on the 
place before St. Germain’s Church by the Louvre Palace, 
in Paris, and looked over the way up at the somber front 
of the edifice com.menced by King Philip Augustus two 
hundred years before. Restored by Francis L, and en- 


12 The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 


larged by Charles IX. and Henry IV., it still bore re- 
semblance to a castle. Still might the stout walls, the 
buttressed gateways and the conical, leaded towers turn 
off bullets from the still clumsy firearms in vogue. 

In daylight the wanderer would have had his sight en- 
livened by the uniforms of the palace guards; they still 
had such “hackbushes,” or arquebuses, as were used in 
the late civil wars — religious, by the way. Swiss guards 
had superseded the Scotch archers, French guards for the 
king or queen, and some gentlemen of the privy body- 
guard. 

But the butterflies retired at dark, and out came the 
nighthawks — the palace nightwatch, halberdiers, swords- 
men, pikemen. 

On seeing the lonely rover stop and stare, like a rustic 
come to see the sights, several belated citizens, with un- 
dying Parisian courtesy to show their town, paused; but 
on seeing that he was wearing the cowl and robe of the 
Capuchins, who had a convent in St. Honore Street, went 
on. They had no fears for him, if a stranger. This garb 
enjoyed immunity in the dangerous ways, for Paris was 
dangerous — still mediaeval, without reliable watch, lights 
or vehicles ; and with thieves and murderers in the cross- 
roads and public places, where gentlemen drew swords as 
their descendants flourish toothpicks. 

But, again, the citizens were detained. This time, the 
stoppage was independent of the monk, and there was 
no need to question him. 

Before the archway, over which had whistled the shot 


The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 1 3 

of Charles IX. at the fleeing Huguenots below, three men 
attached to a lancehead, a guidon — ^that is, a tongue- 
shaped flag, indicating a flame. It used to be red, but was 
now white, since French monarchs, after England’s cap- 
turing and holding so much of their territory, renounced 
the once royal color. This banner was supported by an- 
other, square, heavily fringed so that it could not display 
itself; it was the Royal Household Brigade standard, at 
present in the charge of the musketeers. 

These emblems and a notable stir within the issue de- 
noted that the king was going forth. It was late for a 
royal journey, or because it was late. King Louis, the 
Morose, wished to make one of his stealthy trips to a 
suburban retreat. He liked nobody to be about. 

Immediately a squadron of cavalry in uniform, having 
black horses — it was the Black, or Capt. Treville’s, Com- 
pany, therefore, and the more remarkable as the troop- 
ers ^'mounted” themselves — sallied forth. They encom- 
passed their flag. A red plume, on all the beaver hats, 
was to betoken that they were in the saddle for duty. 
It was their particular offlce to guard the “just” King of 
France. 

The captain so importantly burdened, sat very upright; 
he was grizzled rather than gray, hardened under his 
corslet and gorget, but carrying them and the horse cloak 
jauntily; darting his deepest black eyes in all directions 
and twitching a sharp, hawkbill nose as if he could scent 
evil, had any signs been near. His baldric held a long 
sword, and his belt, so tight as to preclude the reproach 


14 The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 


that he had become corpulent in his work, held two fine 
pistolets; his large ones were in the holsters, with the 
cover caught back. This was, like his followers, equip- 
ment for war. 

Among the military could be distinguished several, all 
good riders, but not armed for battle, though having 
swords. They were of the personal service, civil officers 
of the sovereign. Then came some subordinates, clerks, 
secretaries, functionaries, guarded by the varlets of the 
musketeers, who were all gentlemen. This rank and file, 
too, were of noble strain. 

These servants were truly soldiers; carrying firearms, 
only less elegant than their masters; under standing or- 
ders to make prisoners, or ‘‘finish” those whom their 
masters in a charge overturned. They replenished dis- 
charged muskets or replaced a lost or broken sword. 

The trumpet and drum were silent on these night 
marches. 

Still, the silence was comparative, the arms clattering 
and the horses, heavy with harness and armed rider, 
tramping loudly. The place before the church, being 
undermined with the crypt, reverberated hollowly. 

The group about the friar, jostling his broad shoulders 
in the gray frock, stepping on his toes in their sandals, 
and almost shoving aside his full, black beard to see the 
better, strove to pierce the mass of horses, steel-coated 
and cloaked bodies, and waving plumes on the flapping 
hats, to obtain a sight into the midst. 

The monarch was just visible, so far as the pallid, 


The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 1 5 

waxen countenance was concerned, since he wore his 
eternal mourning of black. 

Louis XIIL, which order was already of bad augury, 
was not yet thirty. He looked small and light, in 
spite of the huge riding boots and the white gauntlets 
exhaling perfume; while his slouched hat had black os- 
trich plumes clouding not an amiable face. His fore- 
head seemed the more low for this; his lank, black hair 
streamed beside cheeks hollowed and the nose prominent. 
One would think he was released from prison rather than 
his own palace. His eyes did not look up, but around, 
furtively, seeing deeply, but staying briefly on any object. 

Two mustache tufts were too slight to broaden the 
face, while the chin “goatee,” pulled down in fits of nerv- 
ous distraction, elongated it. 

It was Don Quixote without any chivalric mania. 

This was no typical French ruler, but a prince of the 
Italian decadence, haunting, melancholy, disappointed for 
all time. 

“That'S his jester !” said a spectator. 

“No, sir! it is his doctor! I know his apothecary, at 
the Gold Pills and Mortar !” corrected a bystander. “His 
jester has given him up, saying that his majesty was the 
hardest man to amuse in all the kingdom !” 

Four torches were suddenly kindled at the ironbound 
lamp swinging from the gateway keystone. With these, 
as many lackeys rode, a pair to the head of the party, 
with a picket to each to prevent interference, and a pair 


i6 The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 


to midway, to light up a gloom becoming double by the 
king’s depressing mood. 

The gatewards and idlers stood back and raised a 
feeble salutation as if loath to speed a lugubrious guest. 
The whole remainder joined the troopers on the square; 
the reflections danced in all colors on the church window 
panes, and the mournful pageant passed the few specta- 
tors who bowed and muttered some stereotyped phrase. 

The monk solemnly clasped his hands. 

At the satne time, the musketeer captain, too statu- 
esque to look for applause or good wishes, thought he 
saw one of the lookers-on, as one who strews flowers to a 
sovereign passing, toss something on the road. 

Undeniably, something was cast. 

For, one of the unattached riders, his cloak covering 
the badge of the queen’s guards, shook in the saddle and 
swayed badly. His horse, indeed, had slipped, whinnied 
as with severe, sudden pain, and fell where it flinched. 
The well-disciplined troopers and their thoroughly exer- 
cised horses were not affected by this mishap; besides, it 
was not actually within their ranks. But their captain, a 
true captain, who knew every man in his company and 
saw a movement of two or three to dash out and tender 
help to the fallen one, curtly exclaimed, peremptorily and 
yet with feeling: 

''Athos! Porthos! keep touch! It is the Chevalier 
D’Artagnan! Let his lackey look to him!” 

In fact, one of the serving men, on seeing the gap and 


The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 17 

where the missing object was on the ground, had dis- 
missed all other ideas and let the host ride on. 

Whereupon, one of the two musketeers, singled out as 
“Athos” or “Porthos,” though a breach of politeness with 
the sovereign present and of military discipline on the 
march, shouted out : 

“Overtake us at Fontainebleau !” 

“Oh, the king is coming to Fontainebleau !” repeated 
the Franciscan, as if glad to learn something by his 
waiting. 

As this cue did not interest the citizens, who went 
home to tell that they had seen the king go out, they 
broke and mingled with the dark; since, with the torches 
gone, there was no light save from the lamp under the 
arch, w’hich resembled a funeral vault. 

Now, the fallen rider, if not the horse, might have con- 
cerned the minister of charity; but, instead, he watched 
the citizens disappear, leaving master and man to get out 
of their quandary by themselves. 

But not one had lingered or looked behind to be deemed 
the hurler of that odd tribute to which the q,ueen’s guards- 
man had owed his tumble. 

“Yet, I am almost sure I heard an oath and the word 
in baffled spite : ‘Missed !’ ” thought the monk. He stalked 
on, pondering: “Now, who wishes the king’s neck to be 
ingloriously broken by a horse’s false step ? Ah, the hand 
of His Meanness, the Duke of Anjou, is in the production 
of such accidents.” 

During this time, the cavalier had dexterously extri- 


1 8 The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 


cated himself from under the steed, free from the stir- 
rups, and stood by it, the lackey having caught its rein 
and so tightly held it as to prevent kicking or plunging. 
The varlet let it move then freely, to see that it was not 
lamed; he had dismounted, leaving his own horse, a pa- 
tient one, to be held solely by his bridle around his arm. 
He set to examining the lamed horse by taking up the off 
forefoot with a farrier’s cunning. He had a veteran's 
eye and a good groom’s tenderness. 

“What’s the ail — it was an old surefoot?” asked the 
master, more dubiously than anxiously. 

“Ragot has picked up ” 

“A pebble?” 

“No, M. D’Artagnan — it is a spike!” 

“A spike ! ha 1” 

“Farther I Four spikes in one — a ball of points !” He 
held out that diabolical invention of one who hated man’s 
four-footed companion, called by several names — an iron 
instrument which, falling any way must rest on three 
points like legs and hold up a fourth for mischief. 

“A caltrop, by the death 1” exclaimed the officer, with 
a strong rustic accent in his deep ebullition. “Poor 
Ragot!” 

“Pugh! iron is not brass, and unless it be poisoned!” 
observed the servant. 

Since the first Medici reign in France, persons thought 
of poisons. 

“Give me that ; it is a bonbon I awaited !” He wrapped 


The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 19 

it up in his boot lining lace torn off, and put it in his 
pocket. “Well, Planchet, while I look into it ” 

But looking around with caution, and seeing shadows 
hovering about at the gaps which indicated alley mouths, 
he went on, not at ease since this perfidy, speaking in a 
tone to impose attention : 

“Never mind the beast — it is I am crippled ! So !” He 
leaned on his man’s arm, and resigned his horse’s reins to 
him also. “Auch !” as if in pain and doubling up like a 
jockey hurled from a horse. “Is there not a house you 
wot of, to which you could lead a horseman crushed un- 
der his steed?” 

The servant seemed perplexed by this sudden change. 

“At the doors of the palace?” he said, wondering. 
With the queen’s guards’ barracks there, it was a singular 
question to put to him. But Chevalier D’Artagnan, the 
man began to know, put strange questions when he was 
bound to do strange things. He thought he should obey 
without surprise. He, too, looked around as if he had 
been dropped from a roc’s back. 

“Though not Paris born, I know this part. It is 
lucky !” 

He kept his eyes fixed on a house, so protruding that 
it seemed about to plunge into the one opposite. It was 
built of timber and daub; that is, a framework of wood 
was plastered up with mortar, and once frescoed in the 
Italian style. 

D’Artagnan surveyed it, too. 

It had signs, as if turned into a shop. But it appeared 


20 The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 


abandoned, as if even the petty storekeeper of Paris, 
who could make a living on an uninhabited island, as the 
wits say, had given it up in despair. In the garret, old 
rags stuffed up the unglazed sash. Robbers had stripped 
the sheet lead off the roof and borne away the gutters; 
lime had chipped off and the wood cracked and warped. 
The rain had dripped and run down the front, and dyed 
the bosses and beam ends with red like blood. The whole 
was so unhinged and rickety that it promised to visit the 
river in a mass at the next gale from Montmartre. 

The sign, slightly loose at one end, threatened to be- 
come detached and murder any crowd getting into the 
recess from a shower. By day its gilding and colors 
were so effaced that it was nigh illegible. In fact, the 
name of Gilbert or Philibert had been painted over 
“Zamet.” 

‘‘Zamet House,” said Planchet, who knew the signs of 
all Paris, since they were the letters of the street loungers 
alphabet. 

“Zamet?” But it conveyed no meaning straightway 
to his officer. 

‘‘Zamet, the shoemaker to King Henry III., and after- 
wards money lender to King Henry IV. He, also, 
say the people, dealt in drugs after the manner of Rug- 
gieri, druggist to Queen Catherine of Medicis.” 

“Oh, I recall ! In this house died that poor beauty, the 
fair Gabrielle?” 

“Not this house, but the better one Zamet graduated 


The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 21 

to, as the scholars say. This was his store and depositary 
for the secrets of the two queens, both the Medicis.’" 

‘Tt looks repulsive enough to be an alchemists’ labora- 
tory.” 

“Does it not? Well, now, it is still kept for the queen’s 
service. Our queen, yours, master — Queen Anne of Aus- 
tria. No trade could be done in it, and her majesty, to 
whom it fell as being the queen’s lodgings in the town, 
uses it for entertaining the Spanish, her countrymen, not 
sufficiently noble in our eyes to be received in the palace.” 

' “Such do not come often and stay long !” summed up 
the guardsman dryly, resuming his limp on seeing shad- 
ows flit about once more. 

“Oh, the inside may redeem the outside. A hermit’s 
cell is not so uncomfortable as it looks !” said the groom, 
optimistically. 

As if to show that the house might be inhabitated, a 
light passed down as seen through cracks, so that it was 
no longer dark, like the Louvre, or the surrounding dwell- 
ings. 

“Why, it is illuminated !” said D’Artagnan, jocosely. 
“There is to be a reception of Spanish grandees !” 

“It is a good sign,” returned Planchet. “Will you not 
go in here? It has a good view of the palace and its ap- 
proaches,” he added, as if at last understanding that his 
master played the wounded in order to be in a sentinel’s 
tower. 

“It is one thing to ask if one may go in, and another 
to open an impregnable door ” 


22 The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 


“Oh, the bearer of the light expects a caller, as you 
surmised. Just knock as we do at the gate when we are 
late out, and say: ‘In the queen’s name!’ Your badge 
will carry you through I” 

“Planchet, you were named with a sound forecast, 
better than our King, the Just, or, rather, ‘the Balancer,’ 
since he was born under the sign of the Balance ! You are 
a knowing file, Planchet, and a finished one, too. Take 

the horses around to the sta . No, no, not so I to any 

inn for the night. They might tell tales 1” 

“But I do not blab, master! A Picard can hold his 
tongue in thumbscrews ! That’s the mettle of the boys of 
Picardy !” 

“Return to have my report on — the neglected house. 
We will see if, as a queen’s name, Anne invokes as well 
as Catherine or Marie.” 

The Picard sighed as if he did not like the old names 
like the latest one, and walked away with the two horses, 
slowly, because of the injured one. 

D’Artagnan raised his arm to the stupendous bronze 
knocker, when he felt a pang in the side. It was his elbow 
driving the caltrop, though wrapped up, against his rib, 
and it pricked. 

“I have this trip-iron on my heart, indeed,” muttered 
he. “I yearn to learn who threw it.” 

He knocked, and in an order familiar to the queen’s 
household, who discovered that she had a signal system 
arranged with her friends from the fatherland. 


The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 23 

Our Gascon was all the time adding to his store of 
knowledge, by the way. 

Coming to Paris lately as a younger son — ^he was the 
only one of the old Knight of Artagnan, a faded heritage 
in Gascony — he had endeavored to be enrolled among the 
Royal Musketeers. He had nothing to bolster him in this 
extravagant conceit save his father’s sword, good name 
for prowess in the late Vv^ars ; his mother’s blessing and a 
training more for a squire than a courtier. Oh, there 
was in addition, a paternal letter of recommendation, as 
between comrades-in-arms, for Capt. Troisvilles, the Gas- 
con for Treville. 

This letter having been lost on the way to town, he had 
to rely on his readiness of wit, felicity of invention and 
capital sword play, by which he obtained the trial enlist- 
ment in the Queen’s Guards. It was a stepping-stone to 
his ambition — to be a King’s JMusketeer. 

In that corps were the friends he had made, especially 
by dueling on their behalf in conflicts with that detach- 
ment of the musketeers, which, placed at the command 
of the cardinal duke, had become more cardinalistic than 
the original troop were royal, which isn’t saying much. 
For Richelieu ran into debt to pay his soldiers, while 
Louis never paid anything if it could be shunned. 

As Louis D’Artagnan was of the age to love passion- 
ately, serve valiantly and ingeniously, and to admire 
feminine beauty, it would seem that he was fairly 
launched on the sunny, but treacherous, sea of court in 


24 The House With No Odor of Sanctity. 

being defender of that cynosure, Anne, of Austria, ^‘the 
Spanish dame/’ 

Without his seeing any face, or hearing any step in 
the passage, the door chain was rattled to let out a couple 
of massive links, and a gruff voice — male — broken by 
strong drink, tobacco smoke and hard weather, chal- 
lenged : 

“Why come?” 

“For the qtieen,” returned the guardsman, as directed. 

“What queen?” was the question-reply, as if the in- 
quirer had acquaintance with many crowned heads. 

“You might have said ‘which’ queen,” retorted the 
young man, a stickler for grammar, as his learning French 
of Paris was a new thing. 

“Which queen, then, pedant?” 

“She is called of Austria, but comes from Spain, and 
she is the pride of France! Is that simple enough for 
you, simpleton?” 

“In that case, whoever comes under such a name may 
enter, and do it patly, since it is a drafty passage. I avow 
that all the river breezes rush hitherward, taking this 
doorway of Noah’s ark for a funnel.” 

The door was slammed to, to let the hook be taken out 
of its iron groove, releasing the chain; then, opening 
again, it was held just so as to let the slender youth slip 
through, and fastened with precipitancy, to baffle the 
shadows stealing up, as to see after the vanished soldier. 


CHAPTER II. 


AFTER THE TRIPPERS-UP OF HORSES, THOSE OF MEN. 

“So far, good!” muttered our hero. “Town entered, 
town taken ! After the pin in the horse's soft spot, that 
grisly monk watching the march out, and those shadows 
in the black night, I began to doubt I should secure a place 
of espial. They cannot mean an attack on the castle 
while the master is away? They do not intend mischief 
to my lady, eh?” 

The doorman was not yet finished with the door fas- 
tenings. 

D’Artagnan stepped onward three steps in a paneled 
lobby, odoriferous with scents, from toilet perfumes to 
that of Spanish leather. At the end was a porter’s box, a 
recess guarding the foot of wide stairs. Opposite was a 
large door, carved deeply in black oak, with ivory inlay. 
The store in there had become a reception room ; but cob- 
webs, fluffy with “beggars’ wool,” indicated that it was 
not lately used. 

The porter returned and flicked up the wick of the lamp 
in his lodge with a fine Spanish knife, worn without 
sheath in his sash. 

The guardsman saw a man of sixty, erect, stiff, tanned 
and dried. He was somber, haughty, though no gentle- 
man, surely of Southern origin ; a native of the peninsula. 
He might be one of those veterans who fought in those 


26 


After the Trippers-up. 


wars costing Spain as much in cash as her northern friend 
and ally politically laid out in men alone. Though she had 
given the Infanta to France, it looked as if it were no 
bond to continue such payments upon. 

On the man’s part, he saw a youthful cavalier, used to 
horses and play of arms since boyhood ; if of medium 
stature, he was so well knit, and had so overflowing a 
spirit, that an expert would have chosen him before the 
tall man of brawn for either a storming party or a long 
forced march. The spareness agreed with the fire in the 
large and liquid black eyes to proclaim all that. 

The complexion was swarthy, but Paris would bleach 
that; the mustache downy, under which glistened teeth 
strong, white and flawless. 

With the same impulse, the two soldiers, old and young, 
saluted quite militarily. But in the day when the private 
was curbed by the lash, the triangle and the stake, to say 
nothing of the officer using the pistol and the sword edge 
and point to enforce his orders, it was complimentary that 
the youth received a more affectionate hail than the cus- 
tomary submission, like a galley slave’s. 

“On the queen’s service,” repeated the incomer, pleased 
to lean on this talisman, since he was shut in with this 
formidable housekeeper. 

The man smiled, and, reaching out his finger, pointed 
to the badge on the sleeve. 

“That being accepted, can you lead me to some sconce 
where I can watch the square and the palace front?” 

“In the pitch dark?” 


27 


After the Trippers-up. 

“The very time the nefarious choose, I take it !” 

“It is so. I have such a lookout above. I find that 
there are moving scenes in the dark hours.” 

“This house has had its moving scenes within, too, eh, 
comrade ?” 

“Before my time? Yes, the mob rose against the Flor- 
entines, and to give the Medicis a dose of their own 
physic. They were next to impaling Ruggieri, Queen 
Catherine’s astrologer, with a picket — there were railings 
once in front — and a lamp of great beauty; they used its 
bracket for hanging a valet of that Concini whom our 
young king had put to death. They made him who mur- 
dered him a marshal of France.” 

“I would sooner carry a beggar’s staff than the trun- 
cheon so obtained !” cried the Gascon, hotly. 

“Oh ! it is hard to tell. All in the way of duty. As a 
soldier, one obeys — let the Great Tribunal reverse earthly 
judgments and absolve subordinates’ doings!” 

He must have taken hand in many atrocities under 
martial rule. 

“If you will come, I will show you a fine lookout 1” 

He took his lamp and preceded his guest to a room on 
the first floor. It had deep windows and iron shutters, 
bullet-proof when closed. 

“Out of that window, many a time, beauties of the 
court have ogled ‘the Green Gallant,’ Harry IV. I Notice 
the side mirrors on swing hinges — you can see up and 
down without shifting your seat.” 

A highback chair occupied the recess; D’Artagnan 


28 


After the Trippers-up. 

perched himself on the back like a page, and began to rub 
the mist off the panes with his sash. 

“Under the queen’s uniform you are welcome to her 
own, for the queen owns the house! Be a jolly heart, 
and wholly at home.” 

“I begin to do so,” was the reply, as the young man 
played with the peeping mirrors to discover their scope. 

“I suppose that you but little advance the — the ” 

“Only a little I advance the — the ” 

“Personage expected in the queen’s name?” 

“Yes ; I am looking out for — for ” 

“Her or him?” 

If D’Artagnan had been a diplomat, he would have 
shielded his ignorance by saying “They.” As it was, he 
looked as if he left answering of questions to his lackey, 
and, rudely gaping, he turned to the window again. It 
was looking into a camera obscura. 

“As they said they would come at any time,” went on 
the man, loquacious in a spell as old taciturn soldiers are, 
“I suppose they will push on in the night?” 

“The queen has a standing postscriptum to all her 
dispatches : ‘Take heed on the road,’ ” replied the guards- 
man, significantly. “The main question with you, as the 
receiving officer, is: Have you all ready?” 

“Yes, all. Is there anything yet for your service ?” con- 
tinued the Spaniard, as if satisfied and eager to oblige 
his guest. He closed his fist and made the gesture of 
drinking. D’Artagnan shook his head. 


After the Trippers-up. 29 

^‘That’s the new draft ! We old ones were always 
thirsty/’ 

'‘I, never, in a court perfumer’s 1” observed the young 
man, dryly. ‘‘The smells are sickening — sometimes, 
deadly.” 

“Oh, I am not carrying on that business.” 

“But the poisoner may have left a gallipot or a phial 
knocking about.” 

“I see you are prudent, if young. I will go upstairs 
and look out of a peephole of my own. My bedroom 
window commands road and river.” 

“The old soldier speaks there. Right ! we watch ; you 
above, I below.” 

Left to himself, the guardsman grumbled : 

“I wish Planchet would return to entertain this old 
siege gunner. So I may expect to see somebody if I stay 
long enough ! Well, it will not be the one who threw the 
caltrop at the king. Yet, it might be the employer.” 

In fact, no one believed, in the royal suite, that there 
was any love between the married couple. 

King Louis was mistrustful from the first. He had 
a look at the betrothed princess before the official meet- 
ing, and while he granted her exceeding beauty, he re- 
mained on his guard. His mother wished, as all mothers- 
in-law wish and contrive, to still rule her son ; hence she 
parted them, while appearing to draw them nearer. She 
was always hovering around on the plea that the young 


30 


After the Trippers-up. 

wife needed to be surrounded by much attention, that she 
could not “go wrong,” an odd reason to give a jealous 
husband. 

The old intriguante also fanned the flame between her 
favorite son, Gaston, and the new arrival. Louis never 
forgot this amity. So he hated his gay and flippant 
brother as being his direct contrast. He would look 
black, etiquette to the contrary, when Prince Gaston, in 
parties, took his privilege of whispering with Queen 
Anne. Besides, haughty as was the Spanish princess, she 
was coquettish enough to keep up her retinue of gallantry. 
The king began to detest his spouse, and encompass her 
with spies like a Spanish hidalgo. 

Embarrassed at being in this plight, D’Artagnan, who 
prayed to be involved in one of those hidden machina- 
tions by which a courtier rises as well as by deeds of dar- 
ing, was drumming on the window while humming a lay, 
when a singing in the street stirred him with the irrita- 
tion one feels when discord enters into his harmony. 

The ballad was such as befitted the state of things when 
a night performance at a theater was impossible; no one 
would dare go home through streets swarming with 
thieves. 

“It’s the March of the Gastonets,” thought he, peering 
greedily. 

“Who knows, better than we, 

Every tap in all the taverns? 

Who knows but you would be, 

But for us, in prison caverns? 




After the Trippers-up. 

Like the wolves we rage and howl, 

Scaring all the timid lambkins! 

Rapping with the dagger bowl. 

While we uoar for wine and ramkins! 

King of knaves, your praise we sing, 

Till you are the knavish king!” 

With irony the words to Gaston’s honor ( ?) were set 
to a few bars out of a ballet composed by the reigning 
monarch. 

“If our mistress is not engaged to wed Prince Gaston, 
in event of mishap to the king, then this is not the air to 
which this house will receive guests. They are more apt, 
these disturbers, to fright off our guests. Who guesses 
they may be as obnoxious to the prince royal as to the 
king, that they are to be lodged in this place. Poor Anne ! 
never will she be liked here, who cultivates the garlic 
instead of the lily!” 

But the noisy crew paraded the square as if to provoke 
repression, and the intervention continued to annoy him, 
for he mused : 

“Prince Gaston’s horde out for a night’s deviltries. Af- 
ter plaguing the city watch, fine, old, fat countermen who 
listen without leaving their watch boxes, they come to 
pester the palace guards. If ever they came under the 
queen’s windows, and my old crusty captain gave me the 
order, I should delightedly sally and add a new staff to 
the melody, by breaking a head, prince’s or no prince’s, in 
his mask among them.” 

Accustomed to the gloom, he could descry the party — 
seven or eight — at the corner of the first passage, sing- 


32 


After the Trippers-up. 

ing and waving their hands as to call up reinforcements. 
Their companions were possibly in the drinking resorts. 

They felt themselves so truly lords of the highway after 
the retiring to rest of good citizens, that they now set a 
torch flaming. By this fitful light, the young soldier 
could enumerate the principal figures, since they were 
not strange to the court. 

There was a certain uniformity in the gray felt hats 
and the cut of the cloaks — Spanish short — and even the 
way their swords and poniards were adjusted; but they 
also showed colors of their heraldic distinctions revealing 
to an informed observer. 

“Yes, they are the Gastonets. Prince Gaston’s miscel- 
laneous and inveterate friends — the more odd as he would 
give up his own brother to save his neck. That is a 
pretty loud avowal that they expect to replace Louis with 
their precious scoundrelly prince. That is Harcourt, that 
barrel on stumps, who promises to be round as Diogenes’ 
tub, but never to contain so much wisdom by some gal- 
lons. That Dutchman is the Walloon colonel whose 
Frenchified name, Wallon, has already earned him a sword 
thrust from my friend, the Knight of the Vallon. He 
would fight for less, that overweening Porthos. 

“Yonder is Puylaurens, I think, for he has two legs 
like circumflex accents, from taking to horseback too 
early. Accomplished horseman and — toper. And that is 
more surely Coigneux, if not Rieux, so intimate a friend 
of Count Rochefort that it is said the devil will yet take 


33 


After the JTrippers-up. 

him for the cardinal-duke’s ‘Black Demon.’ Is this 
Rochefort linking himself with Gaston, as the Heir — 
vaguely — Apparent ? The street at midnight — what a 
school for plotting ! — to us in the country who pictured all 
schemes in the curtained alcove and on the back stairs. 
Noisy braggarts, offensive, who would think that they 
are at bottom sneaking, lying, a little poltroonish when 
caught without such backing and without their prince’s 
kennel to sneak into. May the king never have an heir, 
if it is not to be a better Frenchman than these conglom- 
erate Italians, Spanish and disinherited Christians. 

“Ha !” — for a new group joined the gathering and one 
of the foremost had two pages with torches to enlighten his 
way, lest he muddied his fine boots fresh from the palace. 
“I will devour my tongue ! but that is Talleyrand, the 
Count of Chalais, the king’s favorite. What a pirate gal- 
ley for him to shove his oar among! What does he do 
with that foppish Cain, who would bribe the royal con- 
fessor and envenom the wafer if it cleared his way to the 
throne ? 

“Chalais I Chalais I whom the deluded king calls ‘his 
good Henry,’ and who since wears that plant, which we 
call lamb’s-ear in our parts, on his cap for token. Lamb’s- 
ear — it is the fox’s that sticks out there, by the Seven 
Stars! Chalais and Gaston! Faith, one sees odd con- 
junctions from a Paris window. These two are of those 
blendings of the quacksalvers, which, innocent on the one 
side, anyway, make the mixture most deadly of drugs. 
But Chalais is not capable of throwing trip irons to a 


34 


After the Trippers-up. 


royal steed. These others are gentlemen of some stamp. 
I do not suppose they need watching by me.” 

The newcomers to the knot were bawling the second 
verse of the tolerably disloyal lay, improvised with na- 
tional spontaneity, when a tall, dark-faced man, wrapped 
in a black cloak, trailing to his feet, suddenly appeared in 
their midst and, going to and fro, so as not to let one es- 
cape, imparted an order which compelled silence. Sev- 
eral drew off from the chattering bands and established 
themselves at strategic points like sentries. 

Chalais was one of these outposts. 

“He stands out from among them,” remarked the 
watcher. 

“I wonder why ? He is young and handsome, noble 
and in court favor. So are the others. Yet he is the one 
black pig in the litter to me. What has D’Artagnan to do 
with Talleyrand-Chalais ?” 

The man who had disseminated order, and by author- 
ity, was not recognizable by the guardsman. 

He was not soldierly, but courtly ; a little obsequious, as 
if not always high-placed; and a slight variation in his 
address proved that he abundantly distinguished the de- 
gree of accosting the nobles of different creation. He 
was graceful, gravely quick and more active than would 
be expected from his gray beard, full, but that might be 
assumed, like the masks carried by the gallants, though 
not donned with so little light and amid their fellows. 

Under his cloak flashed a gold chain and he wore a 


35 


After the Trippers-up. 

badge with a medal around his neck, and acting as a 
gorget. Instead of a sword, he carried a cane, but it was 
of fine wood and had a curious head; a sort of wand of 
office. He might be steward in a noble household. 

“Gaston’s ? No ! The Prince of Guemenee’s ? For 
that is the prince, I do believe, in this disreputable gang! 
What are they idling for? I guess for the prime mover. 
I do not see the foppish prince here.” 


CHAPTER III. 


THE KING — FOR THE RUFFLERS. 

Whether steward or not, and to Guemenee or another, 
the dark man, having silenced and organized the irregular 
collection, walked over and under the eaves of the shunned 
house. To him went the elegant cavalier, known as the 
Duke of Guemenee. This king of the fashionables, 
brother of the Duke of C|ievreuse, came of a family so 
renowned in war that they were called “upholsterers of 
Notre Dame Cathedral,” meaning that the banners they 
conquered and set up in the high church as ex-votos, cov- 
ered its fane. 

“What did the seer say?” demanded the prince, in- 
stantly. ' 

Every word mounted to D’Artagnan and he congratu- 
lated himself on his excellent post, probably predestined 
for overhearing. 

“My lord, it is treasonable!” 

“Odd what zest treason gives to this sluggish life. Go 
on !” 

y 

“Such a prophecy ! He declares that the king’s life line 
snaps and does not die out!” 

“All this time heirless, and — pish ! there will be no suc- 
cession ! What about his next brother, then ? Is he to 
enjoy the reigning, Vouvray?” 


The King — For the Rufflers. 37 

The name was meaningless, perhaps assumed; it was 
not given the noble prefix. This was a steward, then. 

“Like all oracles, yes and no. Prince Gaston is to suc- 
ceed his brother, that is flat! but to rule coeval with the 
queen 1 Their lines are convoluted.’’ 

“Convoluted is a neat word!” 

“It is the seer’s, my lord.” 

“Excellent! they are to wed — Anne and Gaston! ac- 
cording to Biblical, sound and standing law, it is politic, 
too.” 

“He did not say that; only that the queen would not 
long remain a widow!” 

“Any sage would be a fool not to say that, since the 
queen has in her mate no delight, deep or shallow !” 

“Delight is not necessary to princes, my lord,” said 
the man sententiously, and as if princes were indeed a 
set apart. 

“Then they should be parted.” 

Guemenee, like the court, meant the king and the queen 
when he said “they.” Later, “they” meant the king and 
the cardinal — Duke of Richelieu. Nevertheless, astrolo- 
gers prophesied and conspirators wished that they should 
use the pronoun for the queen and Prince Gaston. 

“It is a long time to wait,” said Vouvray; “as things 
stand, will not your highness make a stroke to restore me 
to the royal favor?” 

“It is never too late, Vouvray ; but the king, who is not 
complacent and yielding, like our Louis, must be reached 
in his rare lenient moods. You know, since you keep fa- 


38 The King — For the Rufiflers. 

miliar with the palace and its interior, without having 
'the entry,’ that I have no ear there. Like you, my sister, 
the favorite of the queen, as that Chalais yonder is the 
king’s, is forbidden to slip in by the private way, and 
speak daily with one who was her hourly associate !” 

“Then I must await the downfall of the king?” 

“Plague on it ! my gloomy Vouvray, kings are not Me- 
thusalehs. Any little thing, a pebble in a horse’s shoe, a 
splinter in a floor plank — pshaw ! a wasp in the rose he 
smells ! and hail the next aspirer !” 

“A horse ! then, your highness knows ” 

“Yes, I know something about horses !” 

“But about the king’s horse. This night ” 

“Oh, what?” 

Guemenee’s tone was so blank that the hearer overhead 
acquitted him of a hand in the caltrop. 

“I wish you would speak out. You are not often com- 
municative, so give your tongue a flick to relax it !” 

“Well, the king, coming out to go to Fontaine- 
bleau ” 

“The king gone ?” 

“Yes, a horse tripped, but the horse and rider thrown 
were not royal by a great rate !” 

“There, you see that kings are not eternal ! but the 
rider thrown? If it were the Cardinal of Richelieu, it 
will be silver in your purse from me and gold from our 
prince !” 

“No, only a rider in the train ! They swept on, leaving 
him in the dust as of no consequence !” 


39 


The King — For the Rufflers. 

“You villain ! I believe you threw that iron ! Well, 
we shall see if you are of enough consequence to be 
hanged, you tripper-up of horses !” thought D’Artagnan, 
resenting an attack on a horse. 

“I told you, a pebble!” 

“It serves when it takes the shape of a caltrop and is 
fashioned of iron.” 

“Halloa I This explains I We have been assembled 
to testify that we saw the king borne into the great hos- 
pital with a broken spine! But if he escaped, why post 
pickets as if we were forming a right royal ambuscade?” 

“Oh, he is not leturning so quickly. That must have 
been an act of petty individual spite !” 

Guemenee must have looked so sternly and reproach- 
fully at the speaker that he winced, for he said : 

“Oh, I? I, who base all on his majesty reinstating 
me ! He expelled me but I do not bear malice ! I am a 
loyal servitor to the throne through all !” 

“After all,” said the prince, “I think you should be re- 
placed, for you are not wrong in the affair !” 

King Henry IV., having noticed evil traits in his son, 
Louis, had not only ordered his preceptor to flog him 
personally, and not by a page as victim, but he plied the 
whip with his own hand on one occasion. The prince, in 
passion at being beaten at draughts, had thrown the 
boards in the face of the winner. He, evading, the 
“tables” struck on the cheek of one of the sub-ofiicers. 
This sire of Brioc, usually called the Knight of Vouvray, 
as the title was in abeyance, protested against the out- 


40 


The King — For the Rufflers. 


rage. The court lawyers decided that he was a gentle- 
man and, as the young prince was no more, he must 
apologize. 

Louis was deaf to the legal sentence as well as to his 
tutor’s reminder that King Charles IX., similarly forget- 
ting himself, had dissimilarly made amends. Farther, 
Louis held out, after his father had given him a flogging 
as soundly as he did to his enemies. 

The future ruler had simply repeated, with his trem- 
bling lips, that Vouvray should be thrown into the horse 
pond ! and to pacify him, it was fixed that Vouvray, pen- 
sioned off, should be held as dead. 

He became a limpet attached to everybody about court, 
who might restore him to his functions. Unless, then, 
he believed that Prince Gaston, promising him redress — as 
he promised anything to everybody — would be sovereign, 
hardly would he try to bring the king to disaster. 

D’Artagnan could not hear all this; but he gathered 
enough to understand that this congregation had not come 
to hear a sermon preached on the curtness of royal lives 
and the value of the infinitely little. 

‘‘They are intent on weightier affairs than robbing a 
pieman’s stall or setting fire to the stacked-up baskets in 
the market.” 

The dialogue was interruped by the entrance on the 
scene of the king’s brother. 

As he vied with his companions in the excentricity of 
his pranks, his entrance, for it was theatrical, was of so 


The King — For the Rufflers. 41 

burlesque a character that no one would suspect a royal 
prince of its invention. 

On approaching the meeting place and stumbling on a 
wheelbarrow incautiously left out in an alley, dwelt in by 
the market porters, he had stepped into it, squatted down, 
and ordered his attendants to trundle him out. 

So Prince Jean Baptiste Gaston, Duke of Anjou — and 
afterwards of Orleans — appeared in the clumsy vehicle, 
one man wheeling it and two more, each on a side, control- 
ling its course and preventing the prince from being 
spilled out. They tramped up the gutter, chuckling, and 
splashing up the mud which made the viewers join in the 
mirth. 

*‘Mind your stockings, Louvigny !” called out a by- 
stander. 

‘T don’t care — they are borrowed !” was the reply. 

The joke ended by the barrow being brought to a short 
stop, all holding fast. Gaston, about to rise, was shocked 
and compelled to sit down, his breath jolted out. Gue- 
menee ran up and seizing his hand, pulled him out of the 
box. 

“Droll, isn’t it?” gasped Anjou, rubbing his legs, which 
had the cramp. “They say, the nincompoops, that princes 
have their every wish gratified! Upon my soul, I have 
longed, since I was a boy, to have a ride in a wheel- 
barrow and this is the first time the wish is gratified ! 
Odd eh, prince ?” 

“Very,” said Guemenee, dryly; “if I were a proud fel- 
low, I should not have tendered my hand to a gentleman 


42 


The King — For the Rufiflers. 

who uses the one-wheeled carriage ! As it is, may you 
never want a hand to help you out of the tumbrel/’ 

As the word, while applied properly to a dirt cart, also 
is borne by the executioner’s cart, this allusion was to An- 
jou’s habit, becoming fortified by examples : in case of a 
plot of his being spoiled, he let his comrades suffer the 
penalties, while begging himself off. But the prince only 
saw the allusion to himself and his crew being hang-dogs 
— food for the gallows — and laughed long and pleasedly. 

By all this, D’Artagnan could not mistake the chief; 
it was the Duke of Anjou. 

By seven years the king’s junior, he was but a youth, 
but so precocious in villany ! For this night’s escapade, 
he had donned a heavy mustache, and an exaggeratedly 
long beard coming to a point. Naturally red and ruddy, 
another contrast with his brother, he had tinged his brows 
and darkened the lashes. “Prince Redbeard” was not 
easily recognizable by those not familiar with his voice, 
cracking with the “hicky-hocky,” that is, shrill in the high 
notes, and his manners. 

But his compeers hailed him as the soiil if not the body 
of the enterprise. 

“Capital mask !” said Louvignay, approaching like other 
intimates. “Like the effigy of Marsyas at the tanner’s in 
the Arbalest Street, which we daubed with colors, you are 
improved by the painting !” 

“You are a fool, count !” said Gaston, dealing him a 
cuff, “but I admit, the first of your kind!” 

Count Louvigny seized the hand, and after a wrench 


The King — For the Rufflers. 43 

to express his spite, kissed it elaborately; but tossing it 
away, he exclaimed, sniffing : 

“Faugh! you might have chosen other than a fish- 
monger’s barrow !” 

“Get in and may it fly away with you into the maw 
of the fish which swallowed the prophet 1” 

“This time I excuse myself from the honor of riding in 
your highness’ coach!” 

“Oh, go to the limbo !” 

“I do not wish to go where I shall see too much of 
your lordship!” 

“Stay, then, you reprobate, for we need your villainous 
approval. Your malevolence always recommends you 
to me!” 

“His cowardice and cruelty !” muttered Prince Gue- 
menee. “They are a well-adjusted pair!” 

“This Guemenee is a true prince,” thought D’Artagnan ; 
“but why stay in such odious company, which makes him 
heave !” 

There must be some tempting errand on foot to in- 
duce his delay. So he redoubled his attention, whetted 
by the incident, though grotesque, at the chief’s arrival. 

Yet Gaston seemed to shrink from exposing his pro- 
ject too soon. He showed all the weakness and wavering 
of one slow to come to any conclusion of attack, though 
prompt and active when he had to steal out of jeopardy. 

He was vacillating between fear to undertake a thing 
without ample backing, and yet unwillingness to entrust 
his endangering intention to too many. 


44 


The King — For the Rufflers. 


This seeing, and disgusted, Guemenee hummed taunt- 
ingly while eying him, almost turning his back on the 
others. He mumbled between his teeth the latest “por- 
trait” of the brother of “Louis the Chaste.” 

^'GASTON THE CHASED !” 

“The only brother of the king 

Has more men at his heels than he ! 

To dun for horse or dog or ring — 

A- trying hard his purse to see! 

‘Pay me I’ says Cit, ‘for broken door — 

For bussing wife or tousling maid! 

Or for ransacking of my store !’ 

Fie, prince, that was a crowning raid ! 

Gas-ton, ton, ton ! Gas-ton, ton, ton ! 

What a stunning, funning game we’re on!” 

As everyone knew the words and unconsciously sang 
mentally to the prince’s murmur, the situation was awk- 
ward. The burly Fleming broke in with his eternal thirst 
prompting him : 

“Well, well,” said he, with inimitable guttural accent, 
“if we are all met, why not go into the Fill-Goblet there? 
I am in a drouth !” 

“Hush ! drop him into the well ! or into the Seine ! 
Nothing less than a river will assuage him I” 

“I abhor dose waters! I am a true son of the old 
Noah! I am not a boet like dose Chalais yonder! he 
quaff you of dot Hippocrene — but the Knight of Wallon 
love so much dot hyprocars !” 

“Silence, silenus !” interrupted Louvigny, “the lord is 
about to broach what will allay us !” 


The King — For the Rufflers. 45 

Vouvray appeared in the midst mysteriously and whis- 
pered : 

^‘Gentlemen, you are assembled to spill blood and not 
wine — to crack other than bottle-necks !” 

And as by instructions, he induced those who had left 
their stations to return to them. 

“Hang them !” said D’Artagnan. “They set out videttes 
as if this were the king ! Is it really something in earnest 
at last ? There will be an arrest of state offenders, at last, 
for which my captain aches ! It is promotion all along the 
line, then!’' 

Chalais must have heard his name in the Walloon’s 
gross voice for he looked in his direction. 

“Well, Harcourt, is it a move?” asked he. 

“Good watch, count!” returned Harcourt, nodding. 

Guemenee examined the gathering. 

“We can cope with the patrol?” queried Gaston, nerv- 
ously. 

“We can drive off the patrol of citizens,” replied the 
prince; “but if the palace guard turn out, we shall be 
foiled by losing our prey under the Louvre walls!” 

“You need fear no scandal,” returned Vouvray; “the 
king has gone out of town.” 

“So the guards will turn in — to sleep !” laughed Lou- 
vigny. “I have been of the Praetorian Guards myself !” 

“Prating guards! will none speak out?” cried Gue- 
menee, tartly. 

“Listen, gentlemen,” said Prince Gaston, at last. “If I 
am ruly this night, with no cloak-snatching, no purse- 


46 The King — For the Rufflers. 

cutting, no kissing under the hood, no clashing of sword 

to club, it is because Count Chalais cannot overhear 

me, can he?” 

“Don’t raise your voice ! Stay, he is going over to the 
Vintners’ Passage ” 

“Then, here you have it; my worthy mother, in her 
pasturage ” 

Some smiled at Queen Marie’s incarceration being re- 
garded as a pleasure retirement. 

“She is like that ewe seeing the butcher beguile away 
her pet lambkin — she wants to retain it, but in a tether of 
her own. Now, her shepherd is her former counselor, the 
creeping Bishop of Luzon, who, you know, has become 
Cardinal Richelieu.” 

“The old queen left him as a political legacy to your 
brother,” said Guemenee, finely, amid emotion. “I would 
as lieve set a wolf to guard my sheep !” 

“But seeing that the tool is edged and cutting its mas- 
ter’s hand, she wishes to displace him and resume her 
mastery. But this straddler of the stream of politics, 
never yields what he has once grasped — mark that ! 
Counselor to the king, he renounces all other allegiance, 
when the devilfish gets one tentacle on its prey, its other 
nine consecutively fasten on.” 

“This devil of a prince !” said Louvigny ; “he knows 
natural history now ! Stick to national history, my lord !” 

“This throwing off the bond piques my good mother, 
and since a rose garland should draw Louis better than 


The King — For the Rufflers. 47 

the scarlet ribbon of Duke Richelieu’s holy hat, she has 
woven such a leash!” 

‘‘Ah! eh, eh?” 

“Picture that Queen Marie has found in one of the 
god- daughters of her daughter-in-law, the Spaniard, a 
miracle of womanhood !” 

“Good !” said the gallant Guemenee. 

“A Venus Victorious, among green meads and crystal 
founts, as that phrase-spinner, Chalais, would say ! a fair 
Gabrielle whom intriguers send to court to advance them 
— or their families.” 

“Harpies ! ravens !” said the courtiers with one ac- 
cord. “A woman of charm! a ” 

“A rival to the Queen Anne! She must be a sans- 
pareil !” said Harcourt. 

“A woman !” thought the listening D’Artagnan. “Now, 
this is the subject I should expect a Gaston to expatiate 
upon ! He would throw himself across the path of a 
beauty towards the throne ! And his roisterous group war 
against women ! A woman is his enemy ! his rival ! Let 
us see his plan aimed against a woman !” and he clinched 
his fist. 

“Unaware of my mother’s intention, the queen has in- 
vited this young Helen hither to be one of her ladies of 
honor !” 

“If she be young, your highness — pardon ! maid of ” 

“I know of what I speak, sir !” said Gaston, haughtily, 
to the censorious Vouvray. “If you know the tale, tell it 


48 The King — For the Rufflers. 

better! This lady is young, scarce out of her teens — 
being Anne-Charlotte de Chanlevy 

“Hello \” said Harcourt, rubbing his hands, “I have seen 
a miniature of one of that family ! She has the figure of 
a Pinturecchio’s Diana !” 

“I see,” said a portly man, also rubbing his hands as if 
delightedly interested by this time, “you have here the 
spick-an-span new baroness — married! hence to be lady 
of honor ! His highness is correct !” 

“The Baroness of Sansforain ” 

“Puylaurens, how do you know so much to a dot?” 
queried the Duke of Anjou. 

“Because the baron is kin of mine. By the same token 
I might have been best man down there, if I could have 
left Paris! That is the burden of creditors — I cannot 
breathe the country air unless I grind my tenants for 
rents ! I missed the marriage, then ! But so did Chalais, 
for this bride of yestreen is his cousin ” 

“Cousin of Count Chalais said Guemeree. “Wait ! 

The Talleyrands went from Paris to I wager that a 

Mademoiselle Talleyrand was bridesmaid in his absence !” 

“You would win !” 

“The pest ! just when things were going on so tranquilly 
at court! the king resigned to his estrangement from the 
queen — looking to no point for distraction ! Oh, this dis- 
sembling, undermining Chalais will upset all the peace! 
I suppose he will have the audacity to present his cousin, 
on the occasion of her marriage, to the king !” 

“Chalais dethrone himself ?” said Louvigny. “Being his 


The King — For the Rufflers. 49 

roommate at the palace, I demur to that! He will not 
lower himself a line!” 

“No matter ! It is either to him or the expansive cardi- 
nal that the queen set up this block !” said Puylaurens. 

“For my part,” said the Walloon, “let us have more and 
more beauties at the sullen court ! I have noticed that 
when the court is full of beauties the gentlemen drink 
more, and I am so fond of courts where there is plenty of 
drink !” 

“Silence, Toss-pot ! About this rival to Chalais and the 
cardinal ” 

“She would not be the cardinal’s rival long, but his 
friend ! You underrate him, gentlemen, but you are 
wrong ; he is alone a match for all of us in league united ! 
with the woman his colleague, whom the king seeks with 
an amorous eye ” - 

“Hold !” said Prince Gaston ; “there is no time for sup- 
positions. I come to suspend such forecasting. This is 
a Medusa who will accomplish that miracle of charming 
the marble heart which my dear brother possesses. 
Enough that we are on the point ! The lure approaches ! 
With orders to push on, the queen’s guests, Baron Sans- 
forain and his bride are at the gates!” 

“But a woman ! a young woman ! newly wed !” faltered 
the genteel ruffians, awed and become respectful. 

“We cannot waylay a woman of degree!” said Har- 
court. 

“The Sansforains are mentioned in my records,” said 


50 


The King — For the Rufflers. 

Guemenee, pinching his lip with his finger and thumb, a 
sign of growing anger. 

“If we have to stop the lady, it is but for an instant!” 
said Gaston, hurriedly, who was checked and then spurred 
by this growing opposition. “You should remember that 
Medusa was born beautiful, but that — that she became 
hideous suddenly.” 

There was a surly silence. Men looked at each other 
but each avoided crossing glances. The duke’s voice had 
the glozing unctiousness of serpent slime. 

Gaston stared as inviting a question, but the silence 
continued. 

“What is his infernal intention?” demanded the queen’s 
guardsman of himself. 

“Louvigny,” asked Anjou, slowly, almost solemnly, as 
if all were fixed as fate, “have you made the provisions 
as I ordered?” 

Louvigny stepped into view, as if proud in his way of 
being engineer in a diabolical task. Ungainly, as if pre- 
tending to be deformed — odd ambition I — his bulbous eyes 
shone rather than sparkled; under his ill-fitting clothes 
and the wrinkled hose which he avowed to be borrowed, 
he showed pride in being the assistant of his master in 
an inglorious scheme. He seemed to taunt the others that 
he was the royal duke’s trusted one. He drew from un- 
der his cloak a bag containing articles which clanked like 
glass. 

“My sirs,” said Gaston, grinning under his false mus- 
tache and chin beard like Pan or Faunus, “we have been 


The King — For the Rufflers. 


51 


perverters of the public peace, overturners of authority 
and watch boxes, imitators of the footpad and the cloak- 
pullers ! Now we are to outdo those ingenious and novel 
malefactors called the Disfigurers.” 

“The Disfigurers 

Even the watcher in his window felt the cold chill 
which pervaded the hearers. For once the followers of 
the high-born scoundrel shrank in loathing from one of 
his conceits. 


CHAPTER IV. 


"‘the disfigurers.’’ 

The Disfigurers, or Defacers, was the title given to noc- 
turnal terrors of a new sort. The originators traded on 
the vanity which preachers of the times, like their prede- 
cessors, denounced unstintedly. They moved on the prin- 
ciple that every man and woman believes that their for- 
tune might be bettered but not their appearance. There 
are exceptions; but judging by their success, they did not 
meet them. So they waylaid the beaux and the belles, in- 
cluding those who rated themselves in their category. To 
have such charms of outward mien as were a trump card 
at court and in the fashionable “Marsh Quarter,” labeled 
the happy unlucky for attack some night at a dark cor- 
ner with threats of annihilation of their good looks unless 
forfeit was paid. Before and subsequently, “Maimers” 
have been known; but to slit a man’s ears or to clip his 
nose is not always done without much resistance and that 
halloaing for help in a piercing tone which induces assist- 
ance. 

But the Disfigurers executed a movement in blackmail, 
governed by that silence presiding over negotiations in 
hush money. 

They threatened with one and the same blow, or with 
the one and same implement, to gash the features unrecog- 
nizably and to indelibly tattoo the skin around the cuts. 


“The Disfigurers.” 53 

The implement was a simple glass bottle of ink, glass 
superseding the time-honored inkhorn. 

This, shivered on the face, hacked it and tattooed. The 
countenance divine became a hideous mask. For, shame to 
our science, the writing ink, down to the seventeenth cen- 
tury, was indelible, once shed. 

The vitreous objects ominously rattled in the bag by the 
Count of Louvigny, were those blown glass phials con- 
taining ink. 

It is needless to say that many a gallant who would 
have died lively to the last under bludgeon, dagger or long 
sword, and many a fair dame who would have quaffed 
hemlock without wry face, succumbed under this grisly 
menace and offered ransom. 

This was not the first time that all the prince’s hearers 
had known of this robbery by terror, but, certainly, they 
had no thought to emulate the Defacers, although they 
had little but that to learn of disturbers of the peace and 
person. It was new as an engine of vexing the king, to 
say nothing of their exhibition of their new acquisition 
being performed upon a lady. 

But all their future hung upon the younger brother, 
who might leap into his brother’s place at any time and 
the sooner if they gave fate a push. But while they of- 
fered no protest and did not refuse obedience, the glances 
towards Chalais and the other outposts, were full of 
envy. 

“The wretches!” muttered the guardsman, as soon as 
he could believe what he heard, feeling hot as if he had 


54 


“The Disfigurers.” 


been threatened with such flaying and lashing. “This is 
an outrage worse than death! To deface the beautiful 
image of the angels, which is a woman I perhaps to put 
out the sight which deifies us and emboldens us — darts 
the very light of heaven into our bosom I Under the young 
husband’s eyes to blot his wife’s lineaments into a mean- 
ingless mass I Out on this caitiff prince and his tail I 
Chanlevy, Chanlevy? That sounds as from beyond the 
River Loire, like me 1 Chanlevy ? They are the Champs- 
levees of Gascony, who doubts? and we are all cousins 
down there ! Is a D’Artagnan to let his cousins be pulled 
about ? Forbid it,” and he slapped his sword hilt as if he 
were speaking to the imp, fabled to be forged into the 
hollow of all good sword hilts. “As for the Sansforain — 
I don’t know the baron, but he can command my blade 
since he has the good sense to wed a beautiful woman ! 
Mostly men are afraid to woo the very fine — knowing 
their shortcomings, rascals that we are ! Well, we are 
going to see if, when the black ink is spilled, a little red 
ink is not spattered I” 

There was a running whisper below him. 

“The pretty brown spaniel and his pack of beagles have 
heard the game coming !” commented the overhead 
watcher. ‘T see now why they posted Chalais afar.” 

Towards the conference gate a glow of purple, turning 
yellow, betokened that a clump of torches were coming. 
A little later, by the lights at the Louvre gates, it was clear 
that the palace guard had sallied out and stopped a coach 
and pair at the barrier of chains and long poles. 


'The Disfigurers.” 


55 


The vehicle, built for the rough road, was ponderous as 
a Gaulish war chariot; but the pair of horses, superb 
Norman beasts, made light of the burden; well greased, 
the wheels did not creak and the broad tires did not sink 
too deep in the mockery of pavement. The turnout, un- 
like the glass coaches seen rarely in town, was of the 
country; a perfume of hay, violets and crushed weeds 
permeated it; instead of exotic scents. The footmen 
were plain peasants chosen for stoutness and fidelity ; clad 
in homespun and only identifiable by a badge on a scarf 
on the left arm. They carried crabtree cudgels, not staves 
like town lackeys. They wore common cloth caps, still re- 
dolent of meal and barn dust. Straws trailed from their 
wedding favors, great rosy ribbon knots, large as cabbage 
roses. Two who had not clubs, carried long poles to pry 
the vehicle out of mired ruts; but they had tied lanterns 
to the ends. 

Besides the common guard, rode two squires; three or 
four boys, pages probably, occupied a “rumble” at the 
back of the carriage, excluding the footmen who trudged 
in the dust. 

Two serving women shared the roomy interior with 
master and lady. 

The anspessade (brevet cornet) of the palace gate- 
wards, accepted as passport a letter which was, indeed, 
Queen Anne’s in favor of Baron Sansforain, inviting him 
to Paris and to her presence. He stated that the king had 
departed for a country seat, that it was monstrously late 
to disturb a queen and that he was glad to hear — for he 


56 


'The Disfigurers.” 


was apprised of it — that lodgings had been secured for 
the pair in the neighborhood. 

On learning that it was Zamet House, the young gen- 
tleman shrugged his shoulders but as he had no aversion 
to any but the Spanish, and this baron was French though 
southern, and his wife was inordinately beauteous, he or- 
dered his men to let all pass. 

They took down the chain, while he suggested that, 
the party being within the safe and strong city of Paris, 
his pages should sheathe their daggers and the squires 
strap up their musketoons; the footmen, too, ought to 
hold their cudgels less like clubs of Hercules assailing the 
hydra, and the two fellows who dangled lanterns on the 
long rods like a brace of rabbits, might put the lights in 
hand and trail the long poles — poles apt to put a window 
pane out or the eye of any curious citizen at the said 
window. 

They were here on the palace grounds, and beyond was 
the town. 

“Baron,” concluded he, bowing to the lady and fixing 
his eyes on her, for he remembered the title on the royal 
letter, “you can say your ‘Father which art’ for you are 
snugly ensconced under the palace wall!” 

The vehicle started, raising slight thunder between 
palace and church, and precautions relaxed under this 
advice and the cheery “good-night !” of the guards ; the 
whole lightly advanced towards where Chalais and his 
fellow sentries had announced the coming. 


“The Disfigurers.” 57 

On the other hand, with robber’s haste, the Gastonets 
had extinguished their torches. 

“Now, this assembly of twenty prince’s darlings, counts 
at least a score of villains !” said D’Artagnan, summing up 
the host in ambush. “I may not fall upon him who threw 
obstacles in the king’s tracks, but I cannot fail to run 
foul of these throwing a block in the way of the queen’s 
visitors. But what kind of patrol do the city watch keep ? 
I see not even a glint of a partisan point under flambeaux ! 
and as for Planchet, is he sleeping with the just and the 
drunken in the inn where he stabled the nags ?” 

The number in opposition weighed upon him, for he 
had no great opinion of the louts around the coach, who 
would probably flee if attacked on such strange ground, 
and after the assurance of security, by unsuspected high- 
waymen. 

“If I had the giant Geryon’s three bodies, I might by 
a leap of danger plump into the bowl of soup and scald 
more than my skin ! Bah ! a Gascon and his word count 
as two, and in that faction of flaunting fools there are 
unscarred braggarts. The young bridegroom can be de- 
pended upon to fight his heart out for his wife, and if they 
ofler to mar her by the blackness of Satan and their ink, 
I will not let my sword skip one ! Ho ! for a brush with 
even Prince Dastard !” 

And being a true knight, though not yet mature, he 
tightly belted himself, shook his sword loose and tucked 
his bare dagger in the belt to be handy, with firm re- 
solve, though alone, to rush out and hinder the misdeed. 


“The Disfigurers.” 


58 

Either from a kind of reverence for the royal abode or 
from the unpardonable condition of the road, the coach- 
man made a blunder in the dark. The vehicle surged like 
a ship striking a rock and plunged forward with vio- 
lence, making the pages spring to their feet. The driver, 
retaining his reins, was compelled to balance himself and 
finally fell over the side of the box. At the same time, as 
if the whole were preconcerted, the horses set to caper- 
ing, rearing and whinnying. 

“That scoundrel has been strewing his caltrops and in 
plenty!” D’Artagnan explained to himself. “They are 
brought to a full stop 1” 

The event was to be accomplished before the house of 
evil augury. 

The horses were approached by the peasants who tried 
to induce them to continue without the coachman, but it 
was found that the street chain from the posts in St. 
Honore Street, had been carried hither and were stopping 
the horses. With united action, taking the moment of the 
confusion being at its height, the improvised highwaymen 
sprang out from all sides and fell on the entangled and 
bewildered mass. 

It was like sharks leaping into the Seine in which a 
shoal of fish were compassed. 

On guessing, rather than perceiving, for the lanterns 
were smashed at the onset, that it was a set assault, the 
Baron of Sansforain flung open the window door and 
leaped out, with a pistol in each hand. But he had to do 
with experienced hand-to-hand fighters. They knocked 


“The Disfigurers.” 


59 


Up his arms so that the shock tossed the powder out of 
the pans ; the hammers descended on the empty iron which 
emitted only harmless sparks. Then, seizing his arms, 
they bore him to the pave like so many dogs pressing upon 
a bear. All were intertwined, and fell, and rolled under 
the anchored vehicle. 

The rest of the expert swordsmen fenced with the peas- 
ants and goaded them into retreat as far as the moat before 
the palace ; not to be pushed into the mud, to be smothered, 
they fought as vigorously as men could with stakes op- 
posed to steel. 

The lady was taken hold of by this, and forced out of 
the compartment where her women shrieked till threatened 
and hushed. Muffling the baroness with a scarf, they 
dragged her towards the perfumer’s house. 

But such was Anne-Charlotte’s youth, beauty and sim- 
plicity, with extreme horror at this attack, joined to the 
circumstances of her being separated from her sworn de- 
fender, that the gentlemanly knaves forbore to do more 
than place her before the executioner, that is. Prince 
Gaston. 

All the lights had been quenched ; only the starlight al- 
lowed the rapid operations to be vaguely traced even by 
the young soldier up above the busy scene. 

One torch, being of tarred ropeyarn, fallen into the 
gutter, fought against suppression by throwing out fitful 
flashes. By these the Duke of Anjou, a judge, though so 
young, of physical charms, agreed that here was a well- 
chosen instrument to sever his brother and the queen, if 


6o “The Disfigurers.” 

women could do what Cardinal Richelieu almost despaired 
as yet of doing. 

Strengthened in his resolve to nip this counterplot in 
the bud, he sank all tender and human feelings, for his 
voice was stern and bitter as he said to the muffled one, 
whose eyes alone glared over the bandage : 

“Know that your errand is published here, madam ! It 
is not to be fulfilled — never! Promise to retire and stick 
to culling and pruning your roses, or by all that yonder 
church holds sacred, your beauty will be spoiled I You 
will have a bottle of ink broken over your cherry lips 

D’Artagnan had not heard every word of what passed 
within his ken ; but this time, as the inhuman prince spoke 
under his feet, he lost not a syllable. 

At this unworthy menace, only too plain, he seized the 
bars before him and shook them almost audibly, uttering 
his habitual ; 

“By the death I” 

But when about to bound and carry the grating with 
him if it should yield, he felt a strong hand claw and 
close on his shoulder. A man’s strong voice, so firm as 
to be pacifying even to the Gascon’s inflammable temper, 
breathed in his ear : 

“Young sir, one instant! That is the expected person 
or I know nothing of such matters. We are bound to do 
all for the queen’s guest. The queen’s honor is now at 
stake! I will run down and let her in — if — alack! — it is 
a big if — you can make more than all but one release her, 
for that moment, I will, by Heaven ! snatch her away !” 


“The Disfigurers.” 6 \ 

“From a prince’s hands?” for rank imposed obliga- 
tions on a gentleman. 

“From the devil’s self, whose imp I believe that duke is ! 
I am but a peasant, but soldiering equalizes me with such 
bandits !” 

“I will descend with you!” 

“Oh, no ! surprise will be our only gain I Make the ef- 
fort ! Dash out the irons ! They are long set in, and the 
rust must have corrupted — only worth the scrapping pot! 
When I halloa : ‘Out and lay on the whole pack of ye !’ 
why, force out this grate which, by the mercy, may en- 
mesh two or three of them; and jump down! While you 
ply your steel as if guarding the queen’s self, leave me to 
pluck her out of such pull-devil, pull-angel business ! 
But ” 

Through the gag the victim was screaming. 

“I fly !” 

“I’ll make these bars fly !” muttered D’Artagnan through 
his grinding teeth, set as he put out all his powers. 

Within two minutes, there burst out beneath a cry: 
“Who comes?” With complimentary reliance on the 
young soldier, the old Spaniard was undoing the door to 
open it, though quite alone against a score. 

They drew back a little, thinking that only a mass would 
presume to venture forth. 

This brought the group right before the window where 
the queen’s guardsman tugged like Sisyphus at his rock. 

It was supreme exertion. The lead was firm, but the 
bars had been corroded; they bent and perked out of the 


62 


“The Disfigurers.” 


socket; a crevice in the stone ledge also opened and the 
whole square of crossbars gave way so completely and 
suddenly that the pusher was all but carried with it into the 
street. 

Upon the head of the Flemish colonel and another or 
two the frame descended and as the interstices were too 
small to enclose their heads, like the Chinese cangue, it 
knocked them down in a heap. The Walloon had his 
sword up, flourishing it, and this and his arm were thrust 
through one of the spaces. This twisted them both and 
he relinquished his grasp while uttering a howl of pain. 


CHAPTER V. 


DEATH AND NO DEVIL DETERS A TRUE KNIGHT/^ 

The hurler of this novel projectile only delayed to see 
where it landed, that he might clear it in his leap. 

Doubled up like a clown going through a hoop, he 
bounded forth, his sword between his strong teeth, so as 
to have his hands free to balance himself and arrive in 
that squatting position recommended to break such a fall. 
It was fortunate, for two of the bravoes, having both 
swords to draw and hearts to dare, and coming over to 
assist their comrades, struck at him such sweeping blows 
as would have cleft him at the girdle. 

But as their swords clashed, they disarmed each other. 

Without rising, crouching like a tiger, the Gascon 
delivered that celebrated and quasi-treacherous stroke 
known as “the jarnac.” Prohibited in a formal duel, but 
justified in a combat for the life, it was going out with 
thrusting swords coming in. It consists in slashing so as 
to hamstring a standing opponent. 

The man aimed at would have been maimed, but he had 
one of those sword cases of antique fashion, made of wood 
covered with steel, and that bent instead of being cleft. 
But the smart was so intense that he believed his sinews 
were severed ; he limped off, probably to gain the hospital. 
At all events he reappeared no more. 

Checked in his act, petrified, but seeing all, Gaston 


“No Death and No Devil.” 


64 

Stared at this apparition. The queen’s guardsman ap- 
peared as she rose to a footing like a St. Michael as com- 
monly depicted. He had his sword in his hand; he stood 
before the iron frame holding down the two or three felled 
by it, with the lame man fleeing, and his companion afraid 
to try to pick up his sword, too near the miraculous inter- 
vener. 

It was a sight to make power itself look pale, in the 
gloom enlarging all objects. 

Instinctively, like a coward, Gaston seized his captive 
by the sleeve again, and placing her as buckler, drew 
farther into the door hollow. But at that nick, the door 
flew open, and in the aperture appeared the soldier. He 
struck the duke’s hand off the sleeve, as one lops 
boughs oflf a tree, and dragged her into the hall. The 
next moment the door was slammed so hard, that the 
gush of expelled air shook the prince, mentally and bodily. 

“Long live the queen !” was bellowed through the thick 
panels in merry triumph, and Gaston’s stupefaction was 
perfect, as, out of the small wicket through which a porter 
safely bandies words with inquirers, a wall-gun muzzle 
was protruded : 

“Get you gone, you and your sewer rats!” was the 
gruff threat. 

Gaston had the impulse to drop upon all fours and 
crawl away disappointed, like a weazel from whom a fox 
has taken the chicken. 

But his pride coming to support him, he backed off the 
porch and sheltered himself with the pillar. 


‘‘No Death and No Devil/' 


65 

‘‘It’s not square to the young gentleman to do this thing, 
as sure as I am named Onfrio,” thought the Spaniard; 
“but we must sacrifice the forlorn hope — especially when 

I am alone to defend the breach. What the devil ? 

Hark ! I believe by the cfatter that they could wish he 
were the only man of his sort in the world!” 

The host of the accursed house thought that the queen’s 
ward — for he believed now by her beauty that she was the 
right applicant for shelter here — was to be saved at any 
cost. 

The poor creature, so shockingly making the acquaint- 
ance of Paris, the gay and gallant, could hardly have 
noticed the intervention of the cavalier, for, without in 
any way acknowledging the service of this other in 
rescuing work, she wrung her hands, and, trampling on 
the scarf which had gagged her, said, between mixed 
emotions of surprise, horror and wounded affection: 

“My husband ! Felix, my husband 1” 

“Patience ! they mean no harm to him ; you are the main 
prize I” he said, with a hollow idea of consoling the incon- 
solable. Lean on me. All was ready for your entertain- 
ment when — but ” He guided her up into a room 

on the same floor as where D’Artagnan had established 
his observatory. “Here is wine and — pest I Is she 
going to faint? I thought her of another stock! Pooh, 
pooh ; they will not think to hurt the lord in hide or hair !” 

This was empty comfort when they had so handled 
the lady. 

“The town will be turned head over with this affray. 


66 


‘'No Death and No Devil.” 


The queen has not yet discovered her moods to the 
Parisians, but I am from the Pyrenees, too, and I know 
that there may be fire on the mountains under the snows 

“My husband!” repeated the young woman, mechanic- 
ally about to taste the wine to which her folk fly at all 
emergencies, but repulsing it by its similarity to blood in 
hue. 

“Oh,‘ the queen will defend him, too, like a tigress, 
saving her grace!” 

He again made the gesture, offering and even suing, 
of a host. For on the table was seen by the light of two 
candles in silver holders a loaf of white bread on a snowy 
napkin in a porcelain trencher; silver forks with two 
prongs but elegant; then a bottle of old port, a hunch of 
cold beef, boiled or roast, and two fowls, one brown, the 
other in white sauce. On the sideboard under cover, were 
other dishes, and some fruit raised “on the wall,” which 
a southerner might disdain for size but which were ex- 
quisite in flavor. 

The old soldier was not hard, but he had escaped war, 
so that he believed others, young and brave, would also 
come through the fire unscathed. 

“Oh!” — seeing her shudder — “I am wrong! How 
could you feast when lives are at stake? But you must 
take the wine if you are going to look on.” Then, listening 
and gauging the sounds with knowledge, he added pro- 
foundly : “And it will be worth seeing, only we have lost 
the skim of it in these brushes; it is the first onslaught 
that is worth looking at.” 


‘'No Death and No Devil/’ 67 

But the continuous clash of arms, with oaths and out- 
cries of pain and rage, these called one aloof from the 
festive board indeed. 

But, strangely enough, there was a voice rising above 
the little tempest; it spoke merrily, bitterly, sarcastically, 
taunting, defying, belieing; expressing all emotions but 
those associated with the serious aspects of a duel to the 
death. 

It was young but not sweet, for it was impassioned. 
It chanted, as it were, to the ringing of steel blades and 
the thrusts with their swish and ripping through cloth and 
leather, like a minstrel to a one-stringed instrument. 

In the epoch when men used to bearing swords, accept- 
ed an invitation to “measure blades” as to dance, it was 
strict etiquette to make no observations; a loud expletive 
or exclamation of more or less profanity or sanctity — 
as the appeal to a saint was diversely regarded — was 
excusable only if extorted by pain or surprise. 

A silent fighter was the model one. 

^ But though it was “provincial,” or countrified, the 
young guardsman, as a Gascon, whose volubility was tra- 
ditional, could not yet overcome his tendency, in fervid ac- 
tion, to grace the click-clish of crossing rapiers with re- 
marks, less relieving him of his excessive vivacity than 
irritating the adversary. 

As these sentences, though audible in the room, con- 
veyed no meaning to the newcomer, distracted as she 
was, she sank in a capacious armchair instead of hastening 
into the room with a view of the encounter with which 


68 


“No Death and No Devil.” 


her husband’s with the waylayers might be incorporated 
for all she knew. She was overcome by feeling, for a 
space. 

This seeing, the veteran brought her a brimmer of wine, 
bubbling with glee at being released from a long im- 
prisonment, and putting it to her pale lips, he said, forci- 
bly while respectfully: 

‘'Yes, I know it is your husband who is in danger, but 
if he makes half the to-do over your loss that young 
guard of the queen does over his loss of the refection I 
provided — have no fear! Have courage to look on, for 
which — drink !” 

‘T must go to my husband 1” She rose, and he followed 
her with the cup. 

“You must not venture — I would as soon unbar the 
door on the Witches’ Sabbath I It is a murderous night, 
and Paris tucks its white face under the coverlet and dares 
not risk a peep I It is the royal prince’s rakehells that are 
abroad! The Duke of Anjou’s. They make a mark of 
you! Do you not understand that they are foes of king 
and queen?” 

“The prince’s! But they will kill him, then!” 

“Drink ! If they kill him or that young man, for he is 
the queen’s guardsman — there will be vengeance! Now, 
if you will not look on at the battle for your defense, you 
must live to see the villains executed for this !” 

Whether this grim hint, very Spanish, steeled Anne- 
Charlotte, or she felt failing again, she grasped the cup 



“ Harcourt had replaced an antagonist, who had retired, weary both 
of the insults and the lunges.” 

(See page 69) 


0 




“No 'Death and No Devil.” 69 

in his steady hand and drank half the contents. It was 
like liquid fire. 

“Fiery, eh ? It takes seven years to tone that down. I 
can see you glow with it. Good! My old master used 
to say such wine held vital sparks. There, you can go to 
the window, if you like. I think it is the end of the fray. 
It blew too hot to last. Pray St. Jago that the young man 
— and your lord — hasten I” 

Certainly his young friend had not been overpowered, as 
far as voice was concerned. 

All the time he had jeered and exasperated, and his 
sword had been active, as the lion lashes with his tail 
while roaring. 

In the absence of newspapers, there were tattlers who 
retailed all the news and what was pure invention. Con- 
tact with the court gossips had filled him with personal 
notes. 

'‘Faith, here is our Lord of Harcourt. Come on, that I 
may disable you and spare you the trouble of equipping 
for the next campaign I I agree with your steward that 
you are right to nod to the beggar at your gates, for the 
ragged rascal, as you neatly say, is richer than your lord- 
ship and may advance a few thousand crowns on fair in- 
terest 

Harcourt had replaced an antagonist, who had re- 
tired, weary both of the insults and the lunges. 

D’Artagnan let out his spare long arm and extended 
his lithe body so as to cause the new contestant to parry 
with the point nastily close to his rotund body. 


70 


“No Death and No Devil.” 


‘‘Mind, or — this be your last campaign 

Harcourt was ambidexterous in sword play, but he 
wanted a weapon in both hands to contend with this over- 
vigorous fencer, who made him shift his into the other 
hand from a scratch on the forearm. 

“Withdraw when you like, for there is the Chevalier 
Rieux without his inseparable Rochefort! I owe your 
link-companion one for the little sword cut which I” — 
and he pressed upon Rieux — “recommend you to pass to 
him! Regret, my friend, that you adopted the footpad’s 
profession since, this time, you opened your shop too early 
or too late. I have tapped the till !” 

Rieux, in truth, fell back to patch up a rent in his doub- 
let, which began to be sopped with blood. 

The Walloon captain came up, having only now fully 
disembarrassed himself of the iron grating, which cost 
him some shreds of his cloak and sprays of his plumes. 

“Ha, ha ! Is this a knight of St. Nick ! You who wear 
the collar of his Ignoble Order of the Pillory !” 

“An insult the more ! Are we never to have done with 
this palaver?” cried the Fleming. 

“I cannot afford you the time to digest it !” 

And turning, he drove the portly Hector to a horse 
post, on which he impaled the hem of his cloak, so that 
he could not disengage his sword thus embedded in the 
oak. 

“Now ! now ! slay him !” screamed Gaston, enraged be- 
yond words by the escape of his prey and this unknown 
youth detaining all his choice myrmidons. 


“No Death and No Devil.” 


71 


“It is a bear out of the Pyrenean wolds/' said Harcourt, 
disengaged by the diversion on the Fleming. “You have 
strained the strings too high. These spingalds are mad- 
dened when a pretty woman is at stake !" 

“They feed on the old romanceros and tales of chivalry 
in the south/’ also explained Rieux, grimacing with pain. 
What the mischief house is that which vomits fencers of 
that high mark and swallows up beauties of her higher 
mark?” 

“Keep him here, and we’ll burn down the house over 
her red hair!” 

Harcourt looked up. He spied a pale face at the win- 
dow, now without sash or grating. It was the Baroness 
of Sansforain, supported by the Spaniard, and looking 
over the heads of the quarrelers to try to see what had 
passed by the coach. 

At this sight, Gaston forgot the interfering gallant, and, 
gritting his teeth, drew his dagger and stabbed, like a 
boy, at the door. 

“We’ll have her out and burn the house, then !” said he, 
in a high voice. 

“Your highness will have to do all that with his own 
hand,” said Rieux, too angry to be civil; “for all of us 
not punctured by that fiend in the eelskin, that Hop-o’- 
my-thumb who floors giants like the Walloon, will be 
needed by the cripples to transport them to the hospital. 
I feel my best blood going, hang it! Was my ancestor 
wise who established a bed there ?” 

“Look !” said Harcourt. “Fiend he is, for fair, who is 


72 


“No Death and No Devil.” 


this King Log whom Jupiter drops from the clouds to 
make a fool of a fencer like Louvigny?” 

“A log — ^not a laughing stock/’ said Rieux. 

“Close in, gentlemen, close, and stab at short arm!” 
cried the duke, knocking at the door as if he craved en- 
trance before the arrival of this single force, overturning 
the ten or twelve left as his guard. 

And he laughed loudly but falsely. 

“The prince laughs I” said D’Artagnan. “I had no idea 
I was so funny !” 

“You are grisly fun — ^but, a pity, they come up with the 
varlets. Surrender, or you are a dead man, sir I” said 
Harcourt, hastening back on seeing that the tables were 
likely now to turn. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE DYING BEQUEST. 

Count Chalais had not seen plainly what went on at the 
old house. 

He had, like the other outposts, hurried towards the 
coach where the despoiled husband fought with ferocity 
akin to madness. 

Baron Sansforian had shaken off those who hung on 
to him after rolling under the vehicle. His pistols taken 
from him, he had also lost his sword by the belt being torn 
off, and his dagger was gone. But the hundred feelings 
which revolutionized him made him ignorant of these 
losses. He had become the primeval man who fought with 
tooth, nail and feet. 

His surprise at this specimen of Parisian hospitality; 
the apparent sending of him by the ensign at the palace 
into such a band of ruffians ; the doubt whether the queen’s 
letter was not a lure; the trouble a beautiful wife always 
gives a man, unless he is so vain as to desire her to be 
everybody’s object of praise; his hurt pride at being dis- 
armed at the outset ; the being attacked, as he was, at the 
first by servants rather than equals ; the darkness, mental, 
as to who were his assailants; but, above all, his being 
roughly parted from his wife — all these converted him into 
a human tiger bereft of its mate. 


74 


The Dying Bequest. 

He was in the intoxicated Malay’s mood when running 
through a town with no better weapon than a knife. 

He had not even this, but weapons in such brawls are 
thrust upon one; a fallen arm, a chance thing convertible 
into a deadly instrument, and the unarmed is fortified. 

His coach driver was so heavy a man that having been 
thrown off, he sprained both his ankles; but he retained 
his whip, and no enemies cared to go near him. 

It was a whip; as the bad roads entailed the adding to 
the team when the wheels were hub-mired, it had a long 
lash. Again, as the coachman, occupied with the lines, 
has but his whip to handle and depends on the guard for 
firearms, he had amused himself by transforming that 
implement into a weapon formidable at proper range. 

He had loaded the butt with a ball of lead, netted fast 
and plated with silver. It was a bludgeon with which, 
when he was on his box, he could have repelled three 
highwaymen mounted and coming at him front and sides. 

“Master, my lord !” groaned he, trying to rise, and find- 
ing it impossible. “Here you are !” 

He extended the long, slender staff by the tapering end. 

The baron clutched it as a drowning man a spar in the 
sea. 

He saw the capabilities of it in this street scuffle. 

He stayed not to thank his timely servant, but wound 
the lash around his right forearm as well to protect it, after 
the ancient mode of gladiators, as to secure it from being 
wrenched from him. 

Then he took a look at the battlefield. 


75 


The Dying Bequest. 

As he faced the east, he had to his left the returned night 
watch at the Louvre gate ; but, having a whisper that this 
disturbance was not without a ferment from Anjou wine, 
as facetiously put, they hesitated ; they knew that the duke 
would take refuge in the palace as the royal prince if 
worsted, and that most of his cohort surely would be at- 
taches of the palace, or, at least, kin with the high func- 
tionaries there. 

They simply held aloof; they were in the right, since 
they were set to watch the gate and not mingle in “street 
wrangles.^’ 

At the northeast gate, the men who slumbered on the 
great stone bench, wrapped in their horse cloaks, though 
now without horses, were roused and questioned the ex- 
tent of the riot. 

Gaston had a small force around him, or, rather, around 
D’Artagnan, working away with his sword as if fresh 
entering the ring. 

Against the baron directly came Chalais and the others 
free, assisted by their servants, who had pretty well 
mastered the peasants, taken by surprise and cowed by 
gentle folk besetting them. They vaguely believed that 
this was a kind of arrest, and that their master was reck- 
oned as disloyal. 

Now, Count Chalais knew his kinswoman by sight, and 
not only was aware of the wedding, but he had sent her 
presents. He also knew she was due in Paris ; but, though 
at once he suspected that he had been deceived by Anjou, 
and that this pair were of his acquaintance, he still thought 


76 The Dying Bequest. 

that detention and not disfigurement of the bride was 
Prince Gaston’s purpose. 

So, hailing Sansforain as the baron, and in a cordial 
tone, he demanded his surrender. But before he could 
add, on seeing that the address was correct, that he prom- 
ised good treatment, the other, having had ample evidence 
of the good treatment to strangers come to town under a 
queen’s passport, wanted not to hear — as he did — the 
scream of his wife, to have his madness enflamed into 
fiendishness. 

The response of Chalais was a blow of the whip butt, so 
like the swinging stroke of a mill sail that the count, 
struck on the shoulder, recoiled ten paces, ready to yell 
with pain. 

Without waiting to see the result of this action, except 
so far as that it left a gap in the rank facing him, the 
Southerner stepped up to that gap and rained blows on 
the heads foremost, impartially beating to right and left 
while advancing. 

Swords broke like glass before this supple yet stable 
rod ; the loaded end fell as a mace ; servants or gentlemen, 
all receded, and it was almost clear that the furious con- 
tender would reach the dark house door where Lady Sans- 
forain had been drawn in by the Spaniard. 

But this disappearance was mistaken by the love-lorn 
husband ; he logically believed that the enemy had secreted 
their prize. He uttered a kind of war cry, in the Southern 
tongue of old, and charged over the few striving hope- 
lessly to restrain him, towards the knot by Prince Gaston. 


77 


The Dying Bequest. 

The prince was waiting to get in at D’Artagnan and 
» stab him. But on seeing this irate figure running and 
leaving behind him a trail of felled and fallen, he felt the 
greatest terror in his life. He was between two fires ; that 
is, the Gascon and this other Southerner knowing not 
which to fear worse. 

His host had melted away. 

He could have shrieked out “France!’^ the royal war 
cry which must have summoned all the palace guards in 
hearing to his aid, but his voice failed him from sheer 
dread. 

With desperation he dropped his poniard, and, seizing 
the stout Walloon by the wrist presented him as buckler. 
But the latter, in no humor to meet this frenzied husband, 
interpreting his renewed fury as based upon the wife en- 
tering the mansion, caught up the iron grating as a de- 
fense. 

Sansforain ran full-tilt at it, and overthrew the pair 
sheltered, and, as the frame fell on them, delivered a back 
sweep with the whip at the Fleming, imprudent enough to 
try to rise. 

The butt smashed his ear; uttering a terrific yell, the 
agonized man sprang up and closed with the fugitive, 
whose back was now to him. He caught him about the 
loins. The two fell, and as they rolled, Vouvray, unwill- 
ing to use the steel himself, passed a dagger into the 
colonel’s clutching hand. 

The baron could not release the whip bound to his 
wrist, but his left hand grasped the other’s side, with such 


The Dying Bequest. 


78 

a grip that the sufferer believed that two of his ribs were 
clamped together. 

He smote with the dagger, and that grip of anguish re- 
laxed. He rose, panting, aching over the heart as if his 
vitals were plucked at. 

To his dismay and astonishment his antagonist, though 
mortally wounded, rose with him, as if the blood spurting 
out to him was a bond uniting them. 

Sansforain stood erect for an instant; then, while reel- 
ing, he called out in a voice gradually diminishing but 
audible in the hush of horror seizing all : 

“To the true knight I intrust my treasure ! Anne-Char- 
lotte, fare — the — well 

He fell into the Fleming’s arms, but this time inert. 

The slayer let him slide to the ground, like a miller 
who had tried to lift a sack too heavy for him. He was 
white as a miller, as Anjou, on his knees for a prayer, or 
because they had given way, stared at the corpse. 

Then, looking off whither the Walloon gazed, he, too, 
became white as a peasant of the marshes where the horse 
leeches drain the blood. 

He saw enough to turn him into marble. 


CHAPTER VII. 

IN WHICH THE PRINCE’s CHEEKS ARE CUFFED, BUT THE 
HAND IS NOT DULY FORFEITED. 

Our friend was keeping three swordsmen, sound and 
steady, busy to their content when the frantic baron made 
his onset. 

On hearing this rush of feet, D’Artagnan imagined that 
more were coming to have done with such a burr as he. 
He did not look off, for a good fencer soon learns the 
scope of the human eye; one must keep the glance fixed 
in the focus or err. But yet, there is a kind of extra sight 
out of “the corner,” which men know; by this he per- 
ceived that the sanguinary Prince Gaston was preparing 
to steal in and stab him. 

He also saw coming, like a shot from a gun, a slight 
figure, without cloak or hat, no sword, no dagger even: 
armed with a flexible club, the coach whip, which, despite 
no gentleman receiving lessons in its perverted use, was 
accomplishing wonders. 

He guessed, as he leaped over the crippled and dying, 
that it was the baron. 

Sympathizing with him and with a communion of 
mind which men of the same moral fiber feel at crises, he 
shouted : 

“Your lady is safe ! The queen is true !” 


8o The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 

But as his foes renewed their efforts, he had to turn 
and stand to ward and foil. 

He saw with “the eyes at the back of the head,’" given 
to beleagured men, that the poor baron, after knocking 
down the duke and his protector, was treacherously 
stabbed to death. 

It was unaccountable that his disgust at the rakes should 
enhance his love for this unfortunate young man. He 
felt, with him, how awful was the fate to be murdered 
in the gates of the town of pleasure, and his idol torn 
from him. He would not have been cut more deeply if 
this had been his own brother. 

He vociferated his adjuration of “S’death !’’ and re- 
versing his sword so that he held it midway by the blade, 
he swung it round so that he shivered one sword and 
drove the other two out of benumbed hands. 

Contrary to the duello, but he mocked at that. 

Thus momentarily rid of the immediate assailants, he 
spun round as if to flee. 

But it was to dash at the Fleming, beginning to smile 
over his pain at having revenged himself and freed his 
lord. He ran at him so uninterruptedly, that his sword 
pierced him till the hilt rapped his ribs. Then, as the 
body sank, he set his foot against his side and thrust 
him off, so as to drive him off the blade, saying, sar- 
donically : 

“Adieu ! Sire van Wallon ! you will not again, by your 
parody of an honorable gentleman’s title, offend my 
friend, the Knight of the Vallon!” 


The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 8i 

The king’s brother beheld this deliberate punishment of 
his ponderous bravo with eyes aghast; on the guardsman 
withdrawing his sword, he thought that he would be the 
next sheath. 

Help was not forthcoming. 

‘T’ll through and through you, too !” seemed to say the 
victor’s deadly eye. 

‘T — I am the Duke of Anjou !” stammered Gaston. ‘T 
am your king’s brother !’’ 

The Gaston lowered the point. “It is true, but it was 
not square that a prince should do this thing! Well, if 
you' are to live, live, if long, loathed ! Hark I help 
comes I You have missed your throw, and, for your rakes, 
like rakes, they have gathered what they shall not enjoy.” 

Exulting, he scornfully left him, ceasing to pray, but 
cursing. 

“Haste away, my good lord,” said Vouvray, taking him 
by his arm. “Remember the Holy Writ! ‘The second 
child shall stand up in the first one’s stead !’ ” 

The broil was over. The darkness was turning to 
light. Torches blazed on both sides of the Louvre. Lan- 
terns twinkled in the mouths of the side streets. The 
chains were being undone in the main way so let the watch 
come at a run. 

Horses were heard, as if the officials were roused and 
were coming to end this riot. 

“He knows me, he knows me !” almost shrieked Anjou, 
with boyish spite at being unable to retort. “Let him 
die!” 


82 The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 

His mortification, sense of defeat, shameful because of 
the odds and the fear of their deed being related by this 
principal opponent, reinvigorated the survivors. They 
rallied, and, four in number, came on to slay this witness 
of the murder. 

“Ha ! more of it ? Some dogs will never know what 
surfeit is !” responded the Gascon, with his tongue at least 
unworn as at the start. ‘Tf you are to throw up your 
caps for him, it is over him slain by your own hands 

And, rushing upon the prince, as a cat on a mouse, 
which it had allowed to go off a little in play, he held him 
to the oncomers, as shield. There was nothing new in the 
act, but it was not common, even in a Gascon’s experi- 
ence, that a prince of the blood royal should be a mantle. 

To do this, he had artfully disarmed himself; that is, 
he had dropped his sword into the case, and still un- 
wiped, it would probably be glued there — proof, if this 
came before the courts, that he had not drawn his sword 
on the royal duke. 

“Scum!” snarled Anjou, like a fox in a trap; unhand! 
None but the hand royal can be laid on me !” 

“Said in time !” returned the indomitable Gascon, know- 
ing that all his future was naught if this wretch ever 
gained sway of this kingdom. 

This insolent coolness daunted the followers, who stood 
without seeking to free their lord. 

It was Rieux, rather cardinalistic ; Harcourt, who liked 
things to go smoothly; Louvigny, who, inwardly, re- 


The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 83 

joiced that the prince, who liked practical joking, was 
caught in his own style; and Vouvray, who only wanted 
to be off. 

D’Artagnan had both hands on the capture. He found 
as the weakling writhed uselessly that one would suf- 
fice. He suddenly caught his hands, trying to liberate 
himself from the iron clamps, and seized them with his 
right hand alone. With this singular bat, he proceeded 
to beat his cheeks and mouth till his grinding teeth had 
made the knuckles bleed and the lips, too. 

“Your prohibition remains true!’" said he, sneeringly, 
letting him go. 

Gaston spun round, seized with giddiness from his 
shame, unventable rage and some actual pain. 

“He must die for this! by the devil’s forks!” he re- 
peated, as if the words were a conjuration. 

“Without being the devil’s forks,” said the incorrigible 
Gascon, as if refreshed by this tolerably treasonable epi- 
sode, and showing his hands, “you have found, I think, 
that a devil is at the inner end of them 1” 

He whipped out his sword with an effort, for it had 
stuck in the sheath. 

The swordsmen had formed a line before the prince to 
cover him and later to attack, upon his threat. 

D’Artagnan began to fall back, but it was to have his 
back protected. Now, they who had used no dishonorable 
means yet might employ any to realize Gaston’s unal- 
terable wish. 


84 The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 

The deep doorway of the unlucky house was nearest 
refuge. 

“When one is one to three, what must he do?’^ The 
answer to the riddle is : Die ! 

But the young cadet from Gascony thought at the very 
farthest of dying. 

Over and above this, the bereaved lady, if she had from 
overhead witnessed the death of her husband, might, with 
fortitude still to watch, follow the process of her de- 
fender beating off the last of the assailants. Their dis- 
comfiture was certain, since intervention impended. 

But if our Berserker thought of the doorway for his 
stand, he perceived that the villains might climb in at the 
casement and set his previous efforts at naught. 

So he stood by the porch post as to command this 
window. 

Then, reflecting that he could not be called a coward, 
he who had slapped a prince’s face, he set to shouting as 
if he had not lost a breath. His voice, like an eagle’s 
scream, resounded along Dauphine Street and St. Honore, 
up to the Louvre. 

It lacked neither variety in appeal nor volume in sound. 

“To me, guards of the queen ! For the king ! Gas- 
cony for the Gascons ! Turn out, in the queen’s name ! 
Kingsmen and queensmen, turn out ! Comrade in dis- 
tress! Rescue, rescue!” 

One would think twenty men were roaring under a re- 
sonant vault. 

Gaston hoped that he should have vengeance dealt upon 


The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 85 

his ill-treater; he overcame his desire to flee and lingered, 
though Vouvray again besought him to hurry. 

Thereupon, seeing that they could regain favor if they 
succeeded in this final act, the piqued gallants resumed. 

Harcourt, with all the weight of his body, dealt a 
straight thrust with which he was carried on, and bent 
his body. At this very time, as if awaited for, the mid- 
dle of his back, somewhat broad, received plumb center 
a large flower pot containing a ball of roots and compact 
soil; this soil inundated him after the crock flew to 
shards. He measured his length at D’Artagnan’s feet, 
puffing, his last breath expelled from his portly body. 

The others looked down at him. But Rieux, who had 
the intuition that one drop tells of rainfall, looked up. 
Luckily he had retained his hat in the skirmish; for it 
broke the force of a second flower pot, containing a prodig- 
ious wall flower; it smashed on his brow and sent him 
reeling on his heels and fighting with the air, to three 
paces. 

With unstinted profusion, the projector of these mis- 
siles, choosing two Guelder roses in their jars and throw- 
ing them down at the same time, generously aspersed the 
two other combatants. Only those who have experienced 
the ordeal, know the insult, added to the indignity of being 
the anvil for a pot to crash upon ; they will appreciate the 
exquisite misery of having innumerable portions of a 
root and gravel insinuate themselves between the shirt and 
the skin, and work their way, according to gravity, no 


86 The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 

doubt, but very erratically none the less, all the way to 
the boots. 

D’Artagnan might have perforated the whole while thus 
discommoded, but instead he laughed grimly. 

“Earth to earth!'’ said he, burlesquing a preacher’s 
voice, “clods to the clods I” 

“You lout I boor ! peasant I” shouted Louvigny, who 
espied the Spaniard up at the window, whose ledge had 
been robbed of these plants long neglected; “it is clear 
that you are no gentleman I” 

Launching another pot with an untired arm and excel- 
lent aim, the servant retorted : 

“Of course, I am no gentleman!” This time it was 
a vase of majolica worthy of felling a generalissimo ; “but 
I know my dues to my betters. You are entitled to the 
flowers of the earth ! Take them and the earth with them ! 
Here’s rosemary for your wounds !” 

This herculean cup, luckily, only exploded on a cob- 
blestone, but landing in a pool of waste water, it splashed 
the prince up to the eyes. 

“I go !” said Louvigny, seeing that there were three or 
four pots still left in the arsenal. 

It was time ; all fled. 

From the two ways, out of the palace, marched miscel- 
laneous bands of soldiers eager to reply to a comrade’s 
call. 

And from the east and the southeast, to the ruck of a 
drum, came a rabble around civic officials, the tradesmen 


The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 87 

having their shopmen and all repeating a kind of war cry, 
peculiar to the apprentices : 

“Pit-a-pat! come with your bat! 

Rub-a-dub ! come with your club !” 

The fog and dark were dispelled by the lanterns and 
torches. 

In the front of the citizens, D’Artagnan descried the 
faithful Planchet. 

On discovering that the “rumpus” was developing into 
a riot, he had sagely remembered that, as in his odd mo- 
ments, he did work for a grocer in Lombards Street, he 
could count on his fellow ’prentices bearing him company, 
according to the Guild rules, he had roused them from 
their repose with: 

“Bats and clubs ! the rufflers are out !” 

At Sergens’ bars, he had fallen in with his ex-master, 
who was, out of the store, a quartenier or chief burgher of 
the quarter, and- implored him to bring with him the re- 
serve soldiers of the post, and save a customer ! 

Practically an army was surrounding the fatal house, 
which had again loomed over infelicity. 

The commanders found D’Artagnan, like a Homeric 
hero, alone amid the dead, the wounded, and the broken 
flower pots, from which waved like wet feathers the up- 
rooted plants. 

“That’s my master!” cried out Planchet, joyously and 
with marked pride, on seeing the havoc that he believed 
that one champion had wrought. “Now, then, strike! 


88 The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 

No, who have you to strike, for the peace of the good 
city 

As a shot or two rang in the air, fired by an incautious 
or inexpert hand, the windows aloft were not boldly 
opened. Without being warlike, the Parisian has learned 
that, in tumults, shots have an ordinary tendency to fly 
upward, like the sparks. Yet the windows opened and 
never a door. 

From somewhere or another, as if the torches made 
it broad day by time as by their luster, persons ran into 
the danger by curiosity which gives rashness. 

In making their escape, the Gastonets had called out 
with what was left of virulent hostility : 

“Another time, malapert! Next time, spoil sport!” to 
D’Artagnan. 

“I am not a spoil face, at least!” had said the latter, 
as his farewell. 

But the same disseminator of intelligence who had cir- 
culated the news among the Louvre guards that the 
whole was a little freak of Prince Gaston, now repeated 
the information, and it is remarkable how hushed were 
those who might have responded to the questioners. 

As for the Gascon, with whose valor was mingled a 
good dose of prudence, now that he was safe, he appeared 
to have been fighting literally in the dark. 

He admitted to the quarter bailee that he had quitted 
his groom and their horses, to run to the aid of a lady 
in distress, but as she had disappeared during the trial 


The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 89 

of strength he had with two or three unknowns, he was 
at a loss to define the matter. 

Planchet bore this out by reappearing with the horses, 
and ofifering to go to the palace barracks next the tile 
works, as if nothing out of the way had happened. 

As for the knight of the palace watch. Captain Lieuten- 
ant the Viscount Ozy, saluting D’Artagnan as the Queen’s 
Guards were entitled to : ‘‘It is clear that the lady is one 
I saw in the coach in the company of her husband, a 
Baron Sansforain, coming into town under a letter of 
favor from the queen. He has been killed, most like, by 
the strange prowlers !” 

“He is dead, over there, but the wolves show his tooth- 
marks,” observed D’Artagnan, a little highly, as if proud 
of his resistance. 

“Under the palace walls ?” said the viscount. 

“In the city confines !” said the magistrates. “If this 
had been under the Bastile walls I warrant that the gover- 
nor of Paris would have dropped a hot shot or two with 
the freedom that that fellow used to fling flower pots.” 

“Had the king been housed,” continued the palace 
guard, “it were rank treason!” 

“They have insulted the queen and made waste paper of 
her letter of introduction,” said D’Artagnan, mounting his 
horse, a little glad of the change in posture since, though 
the whole world and a planet or two more thrown in 
would not have induced him to acknowledge, he was get- 
ting stiff in the joints, notably knee and wrist. “Gentle- 
men who love the queen, you will place yourselves under 


90 The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 

my orders.” A man on a horse always commands over 
the dismounted. No one thought to challenge this as- 
sumption. “Six of you, under one, to guard this house 
door where the young baroness is housed, by order of her 
majesty !” 

This proof that he knew better of the affair than he 
had said heretofore confirmed his position. 

At this moment, the fair but pallid countenance of Lady 
Anne-Charlotte, of Sansforain, was put out of the broken 
window. It was the personification of hopeless woe. 
Eyes of turquoise distended in reddened lids by pent-up 
tears ; mouth nervous with excitement, even after the con- 
flict was over; hair which had unloosed itself and waved 
down in warm, brown sheen ; a little flush coming on her 
cheeks, all at seeing that she faced a thousand staring 
heads. So piteous that it was very unlike the petrifying 
Medusa as yet, to whom Gaston had likened her. 

“My husband ! then is he no more ? My dearest Felix !” 

Involuntarily, by a sweet instinct, several sprang to 
place themselves before the litter on which varlets had 
lifted the unfortunate baron’s body; the litter was the 
grating. His groom had flung a cloak over it, its arms 
and its legs hanging at each end. The spurs glittered and 
a pledge ring on his finger glanced. 

“Stupids !” roared D’Artagnan, “do you want the town 
to take fire by the sight, and cry hue and cry on the 
murderers? Take it into the church! Comrade Nefle,” 
he went on, to a brother in his, the Guitaut company, “run 
and acquaint the queen with the tidings ” 


The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 91 

^‘But what are the tidings?’’ 

“That the gentleman who bore her letter of safe con- 
duct has been butchered at her very doors, by the mark! 
and that his relict awaits her orders in the doubly ac- 
cursed royal cobbler’s stall ! I shall not feel tranquil 
until there is a stronger guard than this few about her! 
Haste !” 

But at this, a man on a gray horse, wearing a sword 
knot of the queen’s Spanish colors with a dangling Aus- 
trian eagle as tag, rode up and all saluted : it was Guitaut, 
captain of the Queen’s Guards. 

“Thank Heaven !” sighed D’Artagnan, in relief. ‘ Cap- 
tain, I beg to let the word here devolve on you. If I mis- 
take not, none but I hold the key.” 

“Key to what?” asked Guitaut, gruffly, but tenderly, to 
this latest recruit to his force. “To that door! singular 
house where they appear to come and go by the win- 
dows !” 

Behind the fair, sorrowful head was the grim, dark one 
of Onfrio. He exchanged sign of meaning with the cap- 
tain. 

“Oh, what you have seen, that Spaniard must also have 
seen. Not a word before this mob.” 

Addressing the numbers in his curt, grave voice, he 
said : 

“Gentlemen, I bear the queen’s thanks for the service 
you have done her majesty this night. Bloodshed calls 
out from the ground for reprisal. Rest assured that jus- 
tice shall be rendered. The culprits will expiate their 


92 The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 

guilt here where they committed it, when the judgment 
is pronounced !” 

His taking the matter in hand for the royal justice 
prevented the usual squabbling between the jurisdictions 
of the palace and the town. 

Guitaut, champing his mustache, watched the rabble 
break up, with military patience, and most follow the mag- 
istrate. Then waving his gloved hand to hasten the re- 
turn of the palace watch, he dismounted, gave his man 
the bridle to hold, and went into the house. 

Onfrio, having prevailed on the lady to re-enter the 
room, hurried down to admit one he knew to have the 
queen’s entire confidence. 

When the captain came back, he looked at D’Artagnan 
to empower him to take the liberty to question. 

D’Artagnan remained silent. 

‘Toor creature! so beautiful — so young! this is an 
abominable coming up to see the town, I take it !” 

“Take it, it is coming up to see the king that did it ! 
The evening was fated when it began with a casting of 
caltrops under the king’s horse to throw his majesty!” 

“You seem to have chosen an excellent post to see 
everything !” 

“Oh, I did more than look on!” said the Gascon, with 
his mock modesty, “but I saw much ! It is something 
to know that the originator of this attempt to prevent the 
queen seeing her own special visitors had his ears boxed.” 

“Who tried to thwart the queen’s wishes?” sternly de- 
manded the captain. 


The Hand is Not Duly Forfeited. 93 

''It was the next to the throne/’ 

"The next to the would-be thrown, you mean, my 
boy?” 

Seldom did the captain laugh. D’Artagnan did not 
take this cue. 

"Do you mean that that woman in there boxed Messire 
Gaston’s ears?” 

"I maintain that she is capable, but a man did that !” 

"Louis,” said the old soldier, speaking affectionately as 
to a son embaTking on the same rude "sea” of court and 
life, "do you assert that you did that?” 

"Hum! I only held the prince’s hands while it was 
done.” 

"I deserved more frankness. Let me tell you that he is 
in dire danger who did that much — ^but still more to be 
dreaded than he who assailed the beauty, is he who tried 
at the king’s • life 1” 

"I am not maligning when I think the one inspired 
both I” 

Silently, the two rode back to the palace, leaving the 
house where Gabrielle, the Fair, was poisoned, under 
strong guard, for the captain had redoubled that set by 
his young soldier. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

everybody’s, anybody’s, and nobody’s friend. 

King Louis XIII. had outgrown his boyish passion for 
sparrow popping, with a fowling piece made by his own 
hands, which he lastly used. There were birds in the 
Louvre hedges. 

Indoors, when the sky scowled, he shut himself up for 
mechanics, beginning those toy water and windmills, 
lattice work, turned pieces, such as amateurs design and 
common workmen finish before being made gifts. 

Outdoors was the chase in the royal forests, an excuse 
not to breathe the same air as his “foreign wife.” As if 
princes of France could so mock at politics as to marry 
where they chose to give a heart. 

Between indoor and outdoor games is tennis. 

But here the inventive son of Henry IV. had in- 
troduced a novel proceeding. He devised three-handed 
tennis. 

On a morning when he had breakfasted heartily and 
for his diversion put off the minor obligations, the recep- 
tion called “the first levee,” he was in the racket court, 
playing. 

In this eccentric, three-handed practice game, he stood 
midway between the other two players, all facing the wall ; 
it was the primitive handball played with bats to save 
the elegant hands. 


Nobody’s Friend. 95 

On the one side was his brother, Gaston; on the other, 
his favorite, Chalais. 

Not so sulky as commonly, he was agile enough to have 
the best all through. Difficult hits he left to the count; 
easy ones he rushed from under his brother’s racket and 
so “cut him down.” In short, as in royal card play, he 
won all the time. 

“Would you kindly acquaint a stranger to the court — 
tennis and royal, with the names of the prominencies be- 
fore us?” 

So, a polite stranger, indeed, by the cut of his habili- 
ments, and the unfashionable cock to his hat, to those 
around him. They were officers of all arms, off duty, of- 
ficials, loungers, wearied with the same faces but afraid 
not to have a passing glance from the monarch. 

The speaker had happened to pointedly appeal to a 
young officer in the Queen’s Guards. For his gallantry 
anent the Baron of Sansforain and his wife, the queen 
had found him a vacancy as cornet substitute. He was in 
court dress, somewhat military, but his scarf, ostenta- 
tiously by its brooch of a crown encircling “A. A. A.” in- 
tertwined, denoted his company. 

On this question about known figures, some smiled, 
others lightly laughed; but the obliging Gascon, who had 
not so long ago begged for a cicerone himself, replied in 
the low voice of etiquette : 

“I am Louis D’Artagnan, knight, cornet” — he lifted 
himself a “step” — “in the Queen’s Own, at your service !” 

“No more than I am at yours, sir! I am the Knight 


96 Nobody’s Friend. 

Laurent Pontgibaut, next of kin to that poor Baron of 
Sansforain, killed at the gates of Paris 

“Ah, then you heard of the disaster down in — Sain- 
tonge or Limousin, is it?’’ 

“In Auvergne, by your leave ! Yes, we heard that ban- 
dits attempted to overthrow King Louis, issuing from his 
palace gates, and did murder my relative at almost the 
same spot !” 

“Oh, the news reached you that the Parisians no longer 
strew their sovereign’s path with roses, but ” 

“Thorns out of Vulcan’s garden, or rather, smithy — in 
brutal language, caltrops ! As for the slaying of my 
cousin, I beg to offer you my hand, for I was assured 
that all one man could do to help another overwhelmed 
with numbers, the Knight D’Artagnan essayed !” 

“Not at all ! The news got askew on the road ! I 
enabled the baroness to get safely into a house, but as for 
the baron, he fell fighting all alone! It was impossible 
for me, with the lady on my arm, so to say, to do more 
than execute his actual slayer ! It appears that he bore a 
safe conduct from the queen, so that I hav^ heard nothing 
of trial for my having made a saw edge on a good Span- 
ish sword in the fray.” 

“I am delighted you are of Gascony! It is a fine 
wind that blows neighbors together in this inhospitable 
town !” 

“I can understand that you wish, before moving more 
or less on behalf of your kinsman, to see how the wind 
blows! Your question again?” 


97 


Nobody’s Friend. 

*‘To know those players !” 

“Speak lower ! it is the watchword D’Artagnan 
winced at the country gentleman being a little loud and 
obtrusive. “The foremost of that trio is our just king!” 

Pontgibaut touched his hat deferentially. 

“He looks worthy commisseration ; he must have had 
mutton for breakfast and the fat was cold; yet, as he is 
lively by fits and starts, I believe that he swallowed the 
capers in the sauce and is so far animated I” 

D’Artagnan smiled at the rustic wit. 

“I see, with no ofifense meant, that you are no friend 
of his majesty?” 

“They say in our parts that he is nobody’s friend.” 

“Oh, do they say that, there ? Curious I Oh, these 
nicknames are not to be taken at the letter! The king 
is not effusive, or hasty; not hanging his heart about his 
neck, but like those old wheel-lock arquebuses of our 
fathers, slow to wind up, but when they shot, killing un- 
deniably ! He husbands his shot and then it tells — wit- 
ness that Marquis of Ancre!” 

“Canker!” said Pontgibaut; “we know his fate.” He 
had frowned but he assumed a pleasant face and his voice 
was quite even as he pursued: 

“I can’t see a likeness, yet I do believe that the fair 
junior of his majesty is his brother ” 

“You are indeed beholding the second luminary of the 
reign, his royal highness, the Duke of Anjou !” 

“As I watch him return the ball so as to hurt nothing. 


98 Nobody’s Friend. 

and with the air of only just being able to do that much, 
it must be everybody’s friend!” 

“Yes, yes, Anjou!” 

“He looks very amiable — even to his brother !” 

“Even to ” 

“Oh, I am fresh from school — I still remember copying 
Tacitus, and the line applies : ‘Rulers always suspect and 
hate the next in the line !’ ” 

“Nonsense ! for Louis does not scorn Jean Baptiste Gas- 
ton yet.” 

“Then he did not know that Prince Gaston diverted the 
Baron Sansforain from presenting his bride to the court !” 

D’ Artagnan eyed the speaker sternly ; this man from the 
country knew too much and guessed too accurately to 
want information that he would willingly give him in this 
place. 

“You will have divined that the third hand is ” 

“Anybody’s friend!” 

“Apt and pretty ! you have hit off the generic denomi- 
native in so capping the Count of Chalais ! Anybody 
would prefer him as a friend in the royal confines ! See 
how neatly he lets the king get that ball !” 

“Would he face a musket ball as coolly?” 

“More jauntily! Oh, the Talleyrands are courageous!” 

“He would have slain his cousin, Sansforain, to make 
his wife his widow !” 

“As I was on the ground, I am not going to back 
that ! He was cheated — not the first, by that wily duke !” 

“He let the lady be maltreated ” 


99 


Nobody’s Friend. 

^‘No, no! there was no maltreatment I and Chalais did 
not see her, for, recognizing, I doubt he would have 
fallen in with the band.’" 

“Well, it is to you and not him that the poor, girlish 
widow owes her life 1” 

“If you are going to thank anybody, pray keep the 
thanks for a manly hand that dropped flower pots out of 
the hanging gardens of Zamet House 1 Being an old sol- 
dier, a petardier, he used such missiles with first-rate ac- 
curacy! I prefer on the whole his novel discharge to a 
charge of a whole phalanx of Spanish spearmen.” 

Pontgibaut was silent. When one travels day and night 
to avenge an outrage, but discovers that the instigator is 
the king’s brother, it is a block to a forward step. This 
is saying nothing of the supposition that the king ap- 
proved of the roads being clean for the pair to arrive. 

“So that prince wished to deface that lady?” muttered 
the visitor, trying to speak calmly. 

“Deface ! Judging by her grief at learning her cruel 
loss, he only anticipated the disfigurement, for I believe 
that she was within an ace of clawing her features to a 
mask, after Jewish precedents. I tell you, the king, who 
is just, would have avenged that self-torture on those who 
seconded his brother ” 

“As for the brother ” 

“Oh, king’s brothers are only exiled, that is the ex- 
treme in France !” 

“If he were exiled to Auvergne, where the Sansforains 
are loved, such exile would be equivalent to exe ” 


/ 


100 Nobody’s Friend. 

“But Prince Gaston has no idea of going into Au- 
vergne !” 

Pontgibaut recognized that he had conceived too great 
an enterprise. The king and his brother were assuredly 
above any but a Clement or a Ravaillac; but if he called 
out to “draw and defend !” this link between the two : the 
favorite ? 

Would this happy man accept his challange? 

Henry Talleyrand Chalais, count, was a man in his 
thirtieth year; but all had gone so trippingly with him 
that he looked younger. Fair and inclined to freckle, he 
used cream and powder so fine that it adhered and did 
not fall off even while he languidly played. He was hand- 
some, and all he did effeminate did not unman him. 
Never did he drink or think deep. He was vain, and to 
be in good odor, stooped to acquaintances which won 
him the title employed by Pontgibaut, of anybody’s friend. 
Nevertheless, though all courtiers become venal and the 
arch one, the favorite, inimitably so, he did not so often 
sell a post as let himself be wheedled into disposing of 
it. 

But Chalais desired a reputation as wit, since deeds of 
arms seemed rarer and rarer after the exhaustive great 
wars, and to show his smartness of tongue, he spared not 
friend, princes, or, though it was apparently less risky, the 
king his patron. 

Pontgibaut shook his head, revealing that his opinion 
of his relative, become his foe and the butt to be chastized 
for the fatal affray, was leaning to the severe. 


Nobody’s Friend. loi 

peacock, but he will fight like a turkey! That ball 
might have given him a black eye if he had missed it, but 
his rebuff was quick and determined.” 

D’Artagnan was studying this provincial visitor. He 
heard some of the comment. 

“You are a judge !” said he. “Many a court darling 
would face a pistol bullet rather than the tennis ball sing- 
ing on the dainty nose! Chalais is brave! he has proven 
that, in more than one meeting.” 

“When, as the other night, he had the Anjou faction 
at his side?” 

“No, they were at his back. He went alone to meet 
his lamented cousin. Frankly, for I do not dislike 
Chalais, he does not use his ascendancy over the king 
wisely, but he does not abuse it ! If he consorts with the 
Gastonets, it is because he wishes to have his king rid of 
that bondage growing stronger.” He looked carefully 
at the stranger to see if he might be trusted farther yet, 
and conjectured that he stood in no danger from one 
bluff, frank and upright. 

“You see, all the king’s men who foresee, dread the 
influence of a crafty, resolute man like Cardinal Riche- 
lieu, not the fantastical course of a favorite.” 

“This Richelieu ? Upstart !” 

“That counts not against him ! One must start from 
the mother earth some time back !” said the Gascon, hurt 
a little as an aspiring adventurer himself. “When the 
king is a cipher, he becomes ten times stronger by having 
a figure one set in the right place before him !” 


102 


Nobody’s Friend. 


But as it was clear that the newcomer was set on one 
purpose, he retook that subject. 

“Chalais is brave, rest on that ! He comes of the Mont- 
luc breed.” 

“Yes, we boast of Marshal Montluc !” 

“Called 'the French Lion’ by his foreign foes !” 

“A lion keeps his range to himself; it is not lionlike to 
troop with jackals and foxes, in the night.” 

“The red fox also hates the red stockings — Riche- 
lieu, as cardinal.” 

“I suppose you mean that the former Bishop of Lucon 
— he confirmed me there — holds the king in another leash 
than Master Chalais’?” 

“Bondage! Who said bondage?” said D’Artagnan, be- 
lieving that ears were pricking up in their vicinity. “Tute- 
lage, the cardinal, is a grand counsellor ; spirited, spiritual 
and inspiring ! The pope left the choice of the royal con- 
fessor in his hands. It is grand to have Rome approve 
of one’s efforts !” and the guardsman saying this loudly, 
made a low bow to an ecclesiastic, who passed closely. 

Pontgibaut bowed, too, taking the cue that black robes 
might not be loved but the red one was feared. Even in 
the rural districts, people talked a good deal of the ec- 
clesiastic who had kept the conscience of the two Medici 
queej^ and extended his rosary towards the ruler. 

“I see that, as I must meet a brave man, I should set 
my pick on anybody’s friend rather than everybody’s I” 

“My dear neighbor, if I were a general, I believe that 


Nobody’s Friend. 103 

I should quail before an army of asses led by a lion, 
sooner than the army of lions following the fox/’ 

“Qialais being a lion, as his fellow fops are asses ” 

‘^Chalais is doubly leonine, I reckon, since, while Mont- 
luc by the sword side, he is of the brave Bussy stock by 
the distaff!” 

Pontgibaut was not a widely read man, but he had 
heard of Bussy D’Entragues, hero of not too remote times 
(whom our readers may remember in “The Lady of 
Monsoreau” and “The King’s Gallant.”). 

At this juncture, the king’s physician and body attend- 
ant, Jehan Herouard, stepped within the cord keeping out 
spectators and notified his patient that he had exercised 
amply upon the hearty repast. The courtiers parted, and 
united to pay their salutes to the king and his brother, as 
well as to hail Chalais, who had manipulated the ball so 
as to please both the antagonists in the triangular game. 

Pontgibaut was about to salute his adviser, but the latter 
had moved with the throng to greet the king. 

Chalais disappeared in the dressing room, whence he 
emerged in the extreme of fashion, set in a measure by 
himself. Certainly, he was in dissimilitude then to the 
cousin from the meads and moors, whose rusticity was em- 
phasized. As the latter put himself deliberately in the 
beau’s way, he was forced to salute him. He thought 
he was just a suitor, and, as Pontgibaut did not have his 
speech ready, was going to pass on, smiling, when he 
thought he recalled the face. He turned, therefore, as a 


104 


Nobody’s Friend. 

courtier has to be careful not to “cut” a person of affinity, 
when the latter said, in low but vibrating tones : 

“My Lord Count of Chalais, I am the bishop’s-knight 
of Pontgibaut, and I come to Paris to demand an account- 
ing of you, my cousin, of Talleyrand and Chalais, for the 
Baron of Sansforain and his wife, the former having been 
done to death under your eyes with you in the ranks 
against him, and his wife spirited away also under your 
own eyes.” 

Seldom had Chalais, or anyone, heard such an address 
almost in the royal presence. On the royal grounds, at 
the extreme least. 

“Sir!” began he, but controlled his voice by an effort. 

“The Vidame of Pontgibaut ” 

“Oh, Vidame of the Pont-gibbet, if you like 1 This is no 
place ” 

“I am nowhere out of place to denounce the noble who 
lets his kin and kith be slaughtered in the shade of his 
mantle! You are a recreant peer to let a knight be mur- 
dered by varlets, and no knight to let a lady be carried 
off !” 

Chalais bore this very well ; all he endeavored to do 
was to prevent the remote lookers-on seeing in this more 
than a wrangle between the dispenser of court holy water 
and a suitor angered by his quest being fruitless. This 
was a common occurrence, where the king’s minion was 
concerned. 

“Vidame,” said he tranquilly, but his eyes betrayed his 
roused fury at this interlude to his pleasant comedy of 


105 


Nobody’s Friend. 

gulling the king, ‘‘you are right. This spot is as well as 
any for stating your complaint. But I can hint at another 
more fit for my redeeming the slurs cast on me. I do not 
stop to enlighten you, badly informed, but I beg you to 
keep an appointment with me. I have not the slightest 
wish to have your companionship in a ward of the Bastile 
prison ; for the recent governor has been replaced by one 
of our enemy, the cardinal minister’s tools. See me in an 
hour, on the new bridge, which even you as a late comer 
can readily find.” 

He finished with his ordinary concilatory voice, without 
any tremor, and even laid his white hand lightly and paci- 
fyingly on the other’s heaving shoulder. To a distant 
spectator, it was an admirable triumph of courtliness over 
the untaught, animal passions of that rapacious monster, 
the craver of suit at court. 

“Suppose,’* continued the royal “darling,” letting him- 
self indulge in his sarcastic vein, “that I find fault on the 
bridge with — with your boots, as it were ! Faith ! do you 
not use cart grease for the annointing of them down your 
way? We are otherwise shod in the palace precincts by all 
that is odorous ! And I could reflect on your spurs, save 
the mark ! We do not have plows made by the village 
blacksmith rip our Turkish carpets in the Louvre! In an 
hour, I will find fault with your boots and spurs 1” 

“In an hour you will find fault with my sword, dainty 
reptile!” grumbled Pontgibaut, not knowing whether he 
had achieved his intention or not by being turned off thus 
suavely. 


io6 Nobody’s Friend. 

But to persevere would only entail not only the by- 
standers’ jeering but arrest for a quarrel here. He stood, 
red in the gills, and wondering what attitude he could take 
in passing through the rows of dapper, fastidious and 
gaily costumed idlers, who began to look his way. 

But D’Artagnan returned in time to see that to his mind 
all had been cleverly arranged, and without publishing 
the defiance, had come to look upon the stranger as in 
some sort pupil of his. 

So he hastened to approach and felicited him on com- 
porting himself well during the reception of this “challenge 
under the cloak.” 

“Is it settled?” demanded he, but, without waiting for 
an answer, he added : “I see it is, since Count Chalais is 
securing a second ! It is his roommate, and — it is Count 
Lauvigny ! but you would not know — he will second him, 
for he is one of the set of Prince Gaston, and a defacer, 
whose nose I put out of joint, by the way ! I will not be 
sorry to pull it the other way into straightness !” and his 
eye flashed fire at recalling the dastardly scrimmage 
(escrimagCj a fencing melee). 

Pontgibaut congratulated himself on such a warm ally. 
He was experiencing the feeling of one lost in a great city 
— or at all events in so odd a situation as among the court 
gadflies. 

Having chatted with Louvigny and, then, with another, 
as if he were making up an excursion or a dinner party, 
Chalais nodded over to his cousin as if all were ready on 
his side. 


Nobody’s Friend. 107 

Pontgibaut could do nothing in assent, until D’Artag- 
nan remarked, with his way of taking things as granted, 
which was presuming in so young a man : 

“Count me one, and I shall find you another supporter, 
sirr 

The bishop’s-knight could have laughed with joyous re- 
lief. 

To combat with the king’s favorite and to be backed by 
a queen’s guardsman — a choice soldier — his cup might be 
deemed full; but no cup but can hold one drop more. 

“I believe I have in a comrade of mine in the Royal 
Musketeers the precise round peg to fit the gap!” con- 
tinued the Gascon. 

And a King’s Musketeer in addition ! Pontgibaut, spite 
of his boots being countrified, walked on air. 

D’Artagnan was looking around. Suddenly he held up 
his hat straight off his head : it was a signal. A broad- 
shouldered, sturdy-legged person, parading negligently, 
for he had come off guard about the king, obeyed the 
summons with eagerness, but no eagerness deprived him 
of a stateliness due to his ponderosity. He was in stylish 
dress but over all was the cassock, or herald’s shirt, fixing 
his regiment; on the front in the center were four L’s, 
two back to back, and two similarly placed but upside 
down, so that the four formed an open cross ; at each angle 
was flewr-de-lis ; this was the emblem of the King’s 
Musketeers of Louis XIII. 

He came up three feet to a stride, and extended to 


io8 Nobody’s Friend. 

D’Artagnan a hand in which the latter’s completely dis- 
appeared. 

“The Chevalier Porthos,” announced D’Artagnan, see- 
ing that at the sight of this magnificent cavalier, the rural 
squire blushed as deep a tone as the musketeer’s crimson 
cassock, “will you do me the honor to accept the Count of 
Louvigny and the Knight of Reiux’s company to arrange 
a little difficulty over the swords of this gentleman and 
the Count of Chalais ? I am to look on, with you, and see 
fair play, on the new bridge.” 

Porthos nodded as if this were an invitation to draw 
straws as to who was to pay for a wine luncheon. 

“I assure you that the foolery is exquisite and, like all 
good jokes, is likely to turn to earnest. We have here a 
cousin a la mode of Gascony of mine, the Vidame Pontgi- 
baut ! I answer for him that he will be stiff in the sole 
and firm at the heel in the discussion. By the way,” 
though the musketeer did not seem inclined to listen to 
any details, “it is about the superiority of town-made over 
country-made boots!” 

Then, in a whisper, he subjoined: 

“If I am not pitted against that skulking Grammont 
again, and you are, do not let him ’scape!” 

Pontgibaut had been concerned in more than one hos- 
tile encounter in the woods and wilds, but this sauntering 
into a deadly collision with all the lack-heat in the world, 
perplexed him. He stared after Porthos, who lounged 
over to where Chalais’ two friends evidently awaited him 
or D’Artagnan, and was almost dumfounded. 


CHAPTER IX. 


vanity's parade ground. 

Without knowing it, Pontgibaut ought to have written 
home at once that he was given an introduction into Pari- 
sian life simply enviable. 

In the first place, in what company would he confront 
the king's “pet?" 

Chalais had selected two friends happening under his 
hand : Rieux, his “bosom friend" until Louvigny super- 
seded him, and this Louvigny himself, who attached him 
to Prince Gaston. 

Roger Grammont, Count of Louvigny, was brother to 
Marshal Grammont’s elder son, being cadet of this house. 
He had not a’ penny, it follows, all going to his elder, and 
yet he tried to make it out that he was more of a beggar 
than in reality. He was a niggard among niggards; and 
a friend returned from a visit to Scotland, had asserted 
that he would look less indecent in Highland dress than 
the breeches he wore. He had only one shirt; it being 
washed and “got up" while he sipped his chocolate in 
bed. 

One day, Chalais sent for him in hot haste. 

“Even the count will have to wait," said Louvigny, out 
of his morning nap, “for that’s my sole linen on the chair, 
at the fire !" 


no Vanity’s Parade Ground. 

This would have passed as eccentricity and at court this 
patch on the gold and jewels only set them off; the king 
might have been made to laugh which was more than 
his jesters could succeed daily in doing. 

But Louvigny was, despite his extraction, a coward; no 
gifts can redeem that fatal flaw in manliness. Even the 
effeminate minions of Henry III. went to their deaths 
boldly: Probably the law of contraries ruled ; for the fear- 
less and fastidious Chalais repulsed Reiux, who was gal- 
lant, in favor of this vermin. But men have been known 
to fondle pet rats. 

'As his roommate, Louvigny became the go-between, for 
Chalais ostensibly, but for others, no doubt, who wished 
to move the king by his pawn. Dexterous in standing on 
two stools, this young Grammont could reach the ear of 
the king of Anjou. Through Reiux, and therefore Roche- 
fort, Louvigny was in contact with the prime minister, 
too. 

As for the queen, her influence was cumbered by her 
union wifch her brother, France’s eternal enemy — Spain! 

Louvigny had the miser’s keen cunning ; he divined that 
Richelieu was a stream which none could divert and few 
might temporarily dam. It was as some low curs avoid 
the man they know would kick them out. In a rare mo- 
ment of garullity, he had said that “When the king was 
seated in the cardinal’s favor (?), the count (Chalais) 
would be first gentleman of the king and that he, Lou- 
vigny, would take his post of master of the wardrobe.” 

In short, from Chalais so audaciously regulating a duel 


Vanity’s Parade Ground. 1 1 1 

almost within the king’s presence, Louvigny imagined 
him to be greater than the saturnine monarch. 

In less than an hour, all the actors in the next drama 
were assembled on the new bridge. 

Constructed about 1600, it was ever called “the new.” 
It was the sole popular strolling ground of Paris. For a 
Pontgibaut to return home and confess that he had not 
wined, dined, and resigned to have his pocket picked 
while listening open mouthed, to the open-air perform- 
ances of the play actors on stands under the houses lining 
the water thoroughfare, was tantamount to a traveler talk- 
ing of his tour of Rome without allusion to the Seven 
Hills. 

But this time, Pontgibaut found no attractions in the 
motly mass of beggar, lordling, beauty, horror, soldier 
and spy in some politician’s employ — not that the pros- 
pect of the battle daunted him, but he was disgusted with 
his illusions being dulled, and his loyalty fading. 

His dead relative had learned that the warning in the 
queen’s letter for him to be “wary on the road,” was no 
libel on the state of the king’s highway; that her post- 
script that “her name was the bearer’s safeguard” was 
meaningless, where she was hated as a foreigner and re- 
viled because so much more beautiful than the other ladies 
of the court. He was vexed by seeing the king amiable 
to the Jacob who envied his birthright; to his favorite who 
had connived either at his own fair cousin being decoyed 
to town to be “widowed by steel,” or at her being “de- 
faced” not to be rival to himself! As for this Chalais, 


112 Vanity’s Parade Ground. 

he heard in the throng about him, that it was Chalais who 
had asserted that he could poison his master, being su- 
perior officer of the wardrobe, by fastening on the neck 
which he Judas-like embraced, a poisoned collar ! He saw 
the courtiers fawning on Louis for cake, but ogling the 
Duke of Anjou because he might have a cake to crumble 
to them some day. 

To him Chalais was that degraded thing, a cur which 
served two masters. He rejoiced that he might be the 
instrument to kill him. 

'Tf the king were really inspired with justice!’’ he 
tltought, ‘‘he will reward me !” 

The center of the outdoor “shows’’ was the booth of 
Fat Guillaume, where was represented Hardy’s “Triumph 
of Tiberius.” Pontgibaut recognized his second with the 
gigantic Porthos, who had not renounced his cassock but 
turned it inside out so that its lining, of glazed cambric, 
was far from suggesting its glorious right side. A little 
farther was Chalais, with Louvigny looking like a knight 
of adventure on his last legs, and Rieux. 

“Rencounters” were common here, because it was un- 
der the general eye; in the absence of newspapers, the 
gossips had to see what they were to disseminate. So 
the gallants who might have held their battles in the 
suburbs uninterrupted, preferred this rendezvous. If the 
quarrel were about a pin, the seconds separated the pair 
after a little parade of a new sword and the latest feint 
or thrust ; if one were wounded, they hurried him into the 
first barber-surgeon’s, whence he emerged radiant, with a 


Vanity’s Parade Ground. 1 1 3 

white bandage on the arm and was carried into the res- 
turant in vogue. If serious, there was the hospital, and 
vanity was again regaled by the imposing procession of 
friends, the mob and the servants out of place who ac- 
companied, fighting to have a hand on the barrow poles so 
as to be entitled to a silver sixpence. 

There was a bridge guard at the outer end, but its 
patrol rarely extended to the town side, unless the worthy 
militia wished to see the new farce in the booths. 

But this time the combat was to be fierce, after the man- 
ner of those recorded in Josephus, under Jerusalem’s wall. 

Chalais was nettled by the predicament. 

At the same time that the beauty of Anne-Charlotte 
struck him, he felt that his sway over the king was wan- 
ing — who had never let any but Luynes dwell serenely 
with him up to death. 

To see your patron lukewarm is like the first wrinkle 
to a reigning beauty. The favorite resembles those trage- 
dians who cannot endure that even the principal actress 
should obtain applause on the same stage. He began to 
hate the widow of Baron Sansforain, and perceive in her 
an enemy and rival. 

He would not wear mourning for her lost one. He felt 
wounded at being picked out — he really so guiltless of the 
disaster — to be the defender of Prince Gaston. He felt 
that in Anne-Charlotte the latter would find a more dread 
disputant for the king’s favor than any duke or cardinal 
selected. 

He vowed if he came off the better man, to cling to the 


114 Vanity’s Parade Ground. 

prince, since the king must have prompted this calling the 
young bride to court. He was of the opinion, that Queen 
Anne, from her estrangement with her husband, would 
never be but a cipher. 

At the same time he disliked the champion’s determined 
air. 

Their families might be cross with him that he had not 
satiated their remorseless maw. They had chosen this 
man to seek him out and remind him that he was mortal ! 

But the crowd on seeing the mock quarrel as conceived 
and all but rehearsed, in a humorous light, annoyed him 
terribly. 

Not two days before, two valets, wearing their mas- 
ter’s cast-off finery, had fought on this spot to decide 
which’ should have the precedence in taking in hot water 
for the morning shave ! 

A really sanguinary resort to arms was necessary to 
redeem the New Bridge’s reputation! 

The savagery in Pontgibaut’s front, while causing the 
crowd to doubt that he was a bully, gave fresh food to 
Chalais’ misgivings. 

He reasoned that in the same manner as the Duke of 
Anjou, jealous in his own way, had thought to blight 
Baroness Sansforain, he might be trying to make away 
with Chalais, who was not trusted with the design in the 
whole; who knows if the ever-plotting prince had not a 
substitute for him and a more pliant tool in the reserve? 
Chalais knew that a hunting-horn player, yet a page, 
named Baradas, had been recommended to the king and 


Vanity’s Parade Ground. 115 

his horn might be the cause of Qialais’ castle in the air 
— his Jericho — falling down? 

“I shall sell my post dearly!’' said he, resolved. 

Hence they two were of the same mettle. Chalais in- 
clined to be rash, because circumspect; and the bishop’s- 
knight, precipitate, from being slow to move. 

The consequence was that the seconds had hardly 
placed their men, before the latter thrust, without any too 
much preliminary, ^‘feeling” the opponent’s style fairly 
together. The Vidame’s sword point snapped off a little 
below the forte, having met a button or an amulet sus- 
pended to the courtier’s neck; such things should be re- 
moved, but both had been in haste. Chalais’ weapon, on 
the contrary, bending badly and retaining the curve, en- 
tered under the other’s arm and he turned to one side, 
throwing up his arms several times like a fowl, beheaded, 
flapping its wings. The blood flowed so freely that his 
shirt was dyed red; the little white left seemed bleached 
spots. The stroke was fatal. 

Porthos had paired off with Rieux, as D’Artagnan with 
the detested Louvigny; each pair was on a side to guard 
their principals. But, at this summary outcome, they set 
to wrangling about the effects and were immediately at 
swords’ play themselves. 

‘‘Up to the hilts at once 1” chorused the delighted spec- 
tators, of the period when bull and bear baiting were 
popular amusements. 

Louvigny wore a sinister look at the best of times, but 
on this occasion, the eagerness with which he matches 


ii6 Vanity’s Parade Ground. 

himself with his previous contender, gave the queen’s 
guardsman an idea as Chalais entertained of poor Pont- 
gibaut ; that Gaston had continued the command to kill the 
man who had manifestly foiled him and laid his own 
hands about his ears. Grammont-Louvigny was capable 
of this. For this is what he had done. 

In a ferocious fight with Hocquincourt (afterwards 
Marshal of France), he was guilty of an act of horrific 
cowardice. Being pressed, and rebuked for his bungling, 
he protested: 

/It’s these hanged spurs which are in my way! Take 
off yours and let me remove mine, eh?” 

In encounters between men practiced, such excuses for 
a breathing spell were allowed, with a grain of salt. Hoc- 
quincourt lowered his sword, which he held between his 
teeth, and stooped to undo his spur straps. Louvigny 
quickly and traitorously charged him from behind and 
ran his sword through his body. He nearly died of it, 
and was laid up for half the year. When he was at the 
worst point of the recovery, his father-confessor besought 
him to forgive the offender. 

“I bear him too sore a grudge,” he returned, ‘‘to be too 
hasty about that! If I die, I forgive him; but if I get 
healed, I shall return him blow for blow !” 

In the meanwhile, all honorable men blamed this per- 
fidy and anyone likely to meet Louvigny was advised to be 
the victim’s avenger. 

“I wonder that Count Chalais selected him as second,” 
Porthos had spoken out. 


117 


Vanity’s Parade Ground. 

When D’Artagnan prayed him to let him handle the 
culprit, on the seconds becoming imitators of the prin- 
cipals, the musketeer assented placidly. 

“This is a lad of performance as well as of promise/’ 
he said, for the public benefit. “You will see that he will 
deprive Hocquincourt of his retaliation !” 

He was a prophet. The Gascon had no need to keep 
his battery of invective going to disconcert the serpentine 
count. Louvigny, having viperous tongue of his own, vied 
with him in vituperation. This was sweets to the listen- 
ers, but shocking to the precisians of the deadly game, and 
many veterans looked on. 

Louvigny, with some worldly knowledge, believed that 
the sorest point of a freshcomer to town was his rusticity, 
betrayed longest in tricks of speech. The Gascons, the 
Scots or Irishmen of France, were thin skinned about their 
language, boasting that it is primeval, the angelic one in 
which Adam and Eve dilated on their novel and circum- 
scribed experience in Eden. 

“Oh, ho !” exclaimed Louvigny, to please the “gallery,” 
as in disgust at having had a fine thrust neatly parried, 
the “Black Gascon” broke out with a local oath, his ‘'Mort 
dious” for “Mordieu,” of Paris, “we hear a mouther of 
that jargon which puzzled the devil and in which, when 
you spell 'Sol-o-mon,’ you must pronounce it ‘Nebuchad- 
nezzar.’ ” 

The \yelkin rang with laughter. This encounter was 
good as' a play at the stalls. 

“I do not know that it is more singular,” returned 


ii8 Vanity’s Parade Ground. 

D’Artagnan, playing the sword as he spoke, “than for 
Parisians to write ‘Poltroon,' and mean ‘Louvigny !’ " 

As the laughter became bitter and was thrown entirely 
upon the unfair fighter, he redoubled his ferocity. He 
had the last failure to make up, and he was confident that 
the Prince of Anjou would fill his cap with silver pieces, 
who brought news that the man who made him slap his 
face, was dead. 

So the two worked away as never seen among even 
the duels since 1590 to 1600, in which period, according 
to table ciphered out for the prime minister to pass a 
law upon, four thousand nobles and gentlemen had lost 
their lives on the field of honor. 

Meanwhile, Porthos had ripped up Rieux’s sleeve and, 
as the latter thought more of his fine clothes than his 
skin, unlike Louvigny, he held up his sword to intimate 
that he was conquered. 

Porthos lowered his point and bowed to him. He re- 
spected a man who probably had not a long credit at his 
tailor’s, and the doublet was trimmed with miniver. 

Besides, Rieux was simply an “Aversionist,” because 
it suited his policy to have friends in the Anjou camp. 
Porthos allowed two citizens to help him into his coat, a 
feat, since they had to step upon a horse block, and they 
puffed and blowed to the amusement of the crowd. The 
musketeer turned red also, for he thought some one might 
dare to make mirth at him ; but the sound of a heavy fall 
and the “ough !” of a man having his breath knocked out, 
diverted his attention. 


Vanity’s Parade Ground. 


119 


It was Louvigny who seemed as dead as Pontgibaut. 

“That Gascon’s steel went through him like a cheese 
taster through a Pont-Levesque cheese !” remarked Rieux, 
delighted that he had been taken on by the mustketeer, 
and not by this waspish little guardsman.” 

The fallen count lifted one arm and felt in the air for 
a friend. Not a hand was extended, so deep was the 
odium upon him as a false fighter. An odd prayer oozed 
from his paling lips : 

“O God ! Is there no God for the rich as there is for 
the poor?” 

Again, no one softened at this original plea. But for 
shame, Chalais turned towards the dying one. His friends 
had been urging him to make off, but he had refused, 
relying on immunity as being the king’s leaning post. 

But he was preceded by a man who glided out of the 
throng, which made way for him with that quickness 
shown by the masses for the dispensers of curative and 
spiritual powers. 

It was a monk in orders gray. 

That is to say, he was that Capuchin or Franciscan who 
saw more or less of the throwing of the horse tripper, 
causing D’Artagnan’s implication in the affair of the 
dreadful night. 

This holy man fell on his knees beside the wounded 
count. Then rising he made the sign with his hand that 
the friends, servants or others should take up the hopeless 
case. He shook his head lugubriously. 

As the brothers in holy communion were surgical au- 


120 


Vanity’s Parade Ground. 


thorities, only two footmen came up, out of pure duty, to 
carry off the sufferer, who was little better than Pontgi- 
baut. They took him to the barber’s, who had the most 
of the custom of this nature. 

The sign of wood on an ornate iron frame, creaking 
slightly, not unlike a rook for its prey, was “Goldilocks.” 
By the picture one could associate this name with the 
princess imprisoned in a castle who let down her plentiful 
tresses so that her lover could arrive at the turret top. 
The painter had thrown a doubt over the natural orna- 
ment by repeating under the picture the word : “Wigs !” 

* 0 

three times. It would appear, therefore, that the hair- 
dresser sought the custom of those gentlemen who wore 
off their hair with helmets, as well as the tender sex’s. 

“Master,” said Planchet to the guardsman, “I know 
him ! it is the Capuchin who prowled about the Louvre 
the time the king came forth and — you know the second 
chapter !” 

The young man studied the monk; his large, bony 
hands showed great strength of wrist out of the flowing 
sleeves of coarse cloth; a full, black beard worthy of an 
Oriental issued from the cowl ; deep-set eyes glowed fer- 
vently and, to go to the other extremity, his well-kept 
feet, apparently his only foppery, showed white and 
trimmed in stout sandals. These eyes were a man’s 
“born with them wide open.” 

They denounced him to the guardsman, who said in a 
half-loud voice: 


“Why, it is Father Joseph!” 


Vanity’s Parade Ground. 12 1 

At the same time also recognizing this feature of the 
court end of Paris, many said virith awe and yet some 
kindliness, for he was a steward of the Lord: 

“The Gray Cardinal!’’ 

If the bystanders had stood afar from Louvigny in 
spite of humanity, they stepped still farther on seeing into 
whose charge he had fallen. They followed to the bar- 
ber’s shop, but refrained from assisting the footmen to 
bear him within. 

Louvigny dying inspired no less repulsion than in life ; 
the Capuchin inspired deference. 

Deposited on a window recess settee, under a wall 
adorned with prints of heroes, battles, fires and freaks, 
which took the place of the later illustrated newspaper, 
Louvigny opened his eyes. But on seeing the priest, he 
shut them, muttering faintly: • 

“The ghostly comforter? Then, it is fatal!” 

The two servants, regrettable to say, wanted to treat 
their master, all but no more, as the camp followers treat 
the disabled on the battlefield ; they departed disconsolate, 
afraid of the reverend. They ranged themselves at the 
doorway, much like the mutes posted at a dead room egress 
by the undertaker. 

The barber, as became a barber, knew all Paris; he 
bowed to his visitor and held out his hands open, which 
signifies that he was no longer master here, but offered 
him all to the tufts of wool with which he wiped off the 
lather, paper scraps not being common. 


122 


Vanity’s Parade Ground. 

He had not looked at the wound; by other signs he 
judged it was a hopeless matter. 

‘‘Ah, if religion has power to assoil him ?” said he, mak- 
ing the sign of the cross to correct his doubt. 

“Then, you know 

“It is that scrape penny, the Count of Louvigny,” re- 
plied the barber, backing to the inner room, where he shut 
himself up. He evidently suspected that his shop would 
be the arena for the struggle of the holy man with the 
prince of evil, the only prince he faithfully served, over his 
condemned soul. 


CHAPTER X. 


A VIPER DYING EXUDES VENOM. 

In popular parlance, there were three cardinals in town : 
the Red, being the Duke of Richelieu; the Gray, being 
Father Joseph, his inseparable ecclesiastical attendant and 
believed to be that coadjutant who has in his sleeve full 
power to replace his principal in case the latter departs 
from a course laid down to him by a superior; and the 
Black, being Gondi, coadjutor of the Archbishop of Paris. 

Gondi was a cloud which rained alms; Joseph was one 
containing, no one knew what definitely; and Richelieu, 
a cloud threatening thunderbolts. 

St. Germain’s bells and St. Roch’s agreed with remark- 
able unison to sound the time together. 

This must have struck the dying man painfully, for 
once more he opened his eyes, less lively than before. He 
saw the monk still beside him, doing nothing even to 
stanch the blood, if there were any left to flow. 

'‘God of the rich and the noble !” gasped he, "succor the 
Grammonts !” 

“Curious faith!” thought Joseph. “These are a hard 
class to subdue I There must be some connection between 
the head and the heart, as was said in a treatise, at 
Douai ; for, thrusting at the ribs, his brains are damaged.” 

But, in fact, before being wounded the last time, Lou- 
vigny who saw his great hope, from D’Artagnan’s im- 


124 A Viper Dying Exudes Venom. 


petuosity, vanishing, had burst a vessel in the head. As 
a miser, he had hoped to find gold in an ingot; as a 
rake, he had hoped to achieve a name for temerity. In 
both he was wrecked. For a miser dying, is losing his 
hoard; as a defeated swordsman, his fame was tarnished 
— Hocquincourt apart. 

He knew his consoler, who did not yet console. Now, 
whether he took him to be merely Richelieu’s chief spy 'or 
planted beside him by Rome to see that he carried out the 
orders from there, he hoped not relief but the joy of re- 
prisal in his possible aid. 

In the silence, they could hear the hard but suppressed 
breathing of the curious, who flattened their ears against 
the window panes of oiled paper, to prevent too much 
being seen of the mysteries of the tonsor’s art. 

“Oh, I am going to trust you,” babbled Louvigny, let- 
ting one idea master him. “But did I not hear your al- 
fresco sermon at the Innocents’ Cross ? You are an Ebio- 
nite; you believe that only the poor can be saved. Send 
me another, who includes all in the promise !” 

“Dismiss worldly thoughts!” and then, with inconsist- 
ency, but knowing his man, he went on: “Is your will 
made? I promise it shall be carried out to a dot.” 

“My will is that the family shall have all I leave ! They 
will requite Mother Church ! But bend down — strange, 
I am speaking, am I not ? yet I do not hear myself speak- 
ing — and yet I heard you!” 

Joseph had nodded without a word. 

“Will you carry out my last advice?” 


A Viper Dying Exudes Venom. 125 

Joseph still did not speak but he patted the man on the 
head, as one appeases a fretful dog. 

“You know^ the cardinal?’^ 

Joseph smiled as he v^ould say: “Who knows Riche- 
lieu?” 

“He would demolish our castles — would he disserve 
the nobility?” 

“Richelieu wishes to found a line of princes !” 

This flat rejoinder was heard by the moribund, who 
smiled feebly. But his voice was slightly stronger as he 
proceeded : 

“A worldly prelate !” he sneered : 

“No; it is for his family! they educated him, sent him 
to Rome, handsomely supported when his struggles were 

lonely — he enriches them! He himself ” he paused, 

but reflecting that he was addressing the almost dead, he 
added, plainly : 

“He wishes to be all, like all priests !” 

“The pope ? Oh, there is no harm in that ! I, too, wish 
to live to see a Frenchman pope ! Good ! I will help 
him to overthrow the enemies who would frustrate that! 
The Spanish woman would never suffer that innovation !” 

In this expression of hate against the Austrian princess, 
he lost consciousness. With great precaution, and not 
letting the barber see his act, Joseph took out of one of 
the folds of his robe, which served as pocket, a small phial 
bound in silver : he touched his finger to the mouth, after 
removing the stopper, and with this slight moisture be- 
dewed the unfortunate’s brow, side of the eyes and back 


126 A Viper Dying Exudes Venom. 

of the ears. The effect was magical considering the 
wretch’s weakened state. 

Understanding that he had no time and that this return 
was transient, Louvigny, fortified by his spite, pursued : 

“To Grammont House ! Show Butler Augey this ring.” 
Joseph detached it from the finger so as to leave nothing 
undone. “He will give you the reliquary of St. Rogier, 
confided to him by me. A glance! you will see that its 
contents will destroy them all: Chalais, Anjou, all, all! 
But, oh ! help me ! absolve ! O God of the rich, spare the 
Grammonts !” 

Joseph, being of good blood, did not sneer at this pride 
of place. He murmured a prayer, refrained from absolu- 
tion, no avail, since Louvigny was sounding the death rat- 
tle; but he shrank, though inured to such scenes, to see 
the -diabolical smile of pleasure with which the double 
traitor set his features at the last. 

The monk rose and called the barber with a low voice. 
If he had not called, the other would have come in, disap- 
pointed over the whole having passed so tranquilly, to 
what he awaited. 

“This was a sinner,” said the man in gray, “but he has, 
let us trust, passed into safety by making amends for his 
wickedness. He has found that there is but one God, over 
all, the rich and the poor. Let his men carry him to Gram- 
mont House, since the dead must not enter the royal dwel- 
ling, where he lived. I will hurry thither to prepare the 
mourning relatives!” 

The barber laid out the dead. 


A Viper Dying Exudes Venom. 127 

“I believe the monk despoiled him!” thought he; “he 
wore a ring with a brilliant in it, like the Valois dia- 
monds in the regalia 1 Now, these varlets will have noted 
that, too; and they, cheated themselves, will say that I 
robbed him I and I dare not decry the gray eminence I” 

As Joseph pushed through the crowd, he saw that all 
the known figures had disappeared. Not even a dog 
that had known him, followed the disaccredited Lou- 
vigny. 

A few words on the Caupchin’s head, as he proceeds 
for his breaking the news. 

Out of his confraternity, he bore the name of Francis 
Leclerc Tremblay. Born in Paris in 1577, he was but a 
simple priest when sent by his superiors into Poitou. 
Richelieu came into touch with him as his bishop, of 
Lugon, where he already looked for recruits in case he 
entered on a campaign. 

His inspection approving of the reverend father, he ad- 
vanced him gradually into his confidence as far as he al- 
lowed any man. If Joseph surprised him by having more 
insight than he had vouchsafed, he had to overlook that as 
long as he was well served. 

At the crucial point, when the old queen (Marie de 
Medicis) widow of Henry IV., was practically at war 
with her son, her minister was the Duke of Epernon, in 
the same way as young Louis was advised by Albert 
Luynes. 

Richelieu saw that while one may conquer by dividing, 
one requires another course to rule. He will always be 


128 A Viper Dying Exudes Venom. 

found following the rising tide — the younger generation. 
Even at this hour of the prince’s minority he divined that 
he would be the holdfast until he could slip the cable and 
attach himself to another buoy. 

It was necessary, therefore, to consider the queen 
mother, a dead obstacle, and remove all from the path of 
the boy king. 

He prompted Brother Joseph to go find Epernon and 
counsel peace and filling up the breach. Luynes, as the 
royal favorite, had pledged that the reward for this recon- 
ciliation should be the cardinal’s hat to the pacifier of the 
vindictive Florentine and the greedy Epernon. 

The two chiefs of parties in accord, it was imperative 
to join mother and son. Richelieu became the “arranger,” 
now ; he acted towards the astute duke as if he saw in him 
the sole minister for France, and engaged him to hand a 
letter from the queen’s son to her. 

It concluded: “Pray believe that this (the reconcilia- 
tion) is my will, and that the bearer will do me the ut- 
most pleasure in carrying it out !” 

The queen made the bishop of LuQon her chancellor; 
thereupon, so that he had 9fficial rank as intermediator. 
On his report, the king went to Montbazon Castle, at 
Tours, Couriere, where the widow was awaiting. 

“How lusty you have grown since I last saw you, son !” 
she said. 

“The better to serve you !” was his answer. 

They embraced as mother and child should do after a 
couple of years’ parting. 


A Viper Dying Exudes Venom. 129 


This harmony silenced the murmur of civil war, buz- 
zing when Queen Marie escaped from Blois Castle, as be- 
ing plainly a prison, into Angouleme, where her forces 
should gather. 

The young sovereign was bound to be beholden to the 
negotiator who prevented renewed splits in the realm, 
driven in the preceding reigns by religious strife. 

He chose Richelieu, not Epernon, to be his chief adviser. 
Father Joseph, disclaiming any worldly reward, merely 
suggested that his brother, Francis, should be governor 
of the Bastile, State prison. As to which Marais, the 
royal jester, observed that Father Joseph and his brother 
held the keys of purgatory and redemption. 

In a man of this consequence, it will not be thought that 
he had time to hang about the palace gates after nightfall 
to see the king go forth, but he may have expected such 
little hindrances as caltrops, and it was not merely to pass 
a Louvigny towards salvation that he attended his dying 
bed. 

As well as his greater colleague, he knew what con- 
spiracies were hatching. He guessed that sooner or later 
a royal favorite must dabble in the pitch — the bird lime, 
more accurately — which seekers for the scepter lay lib- 
erally about a palace. 

Joseph was an archspy; the European one; under pre- 
tense of preaching another crusade, at first, when younger 
and more fiery, against the Turks, he now held up the 
Black Eagles, of Austria, as “the great red dragon.” Un- 
der this standard, he stalked for his patron and possibly 


130 A Viper Dying Exudes Venom. 

for his own game bag. He had begun like a begging 
monk, on foot; then mounted an ass, which, unlike Ba- 
laam’s, never told tales, and, lastly, had a coach when he 
cared. 

But in every hostile move, he scented the perfume which 
Gaston diffused: that prince had hated his brother ever 
since King Louis had had his tutor. Marshal Ornano, im- 
prisoned in Vincennes, where he died mysteriously. He 
felt sure that his brother ordered this, at the stimulation 
of Richelieu, whom he called “shaveling,” to be shaved 
under the chin, in plain speech, have his throat cut. 

Joseph had shuddered at this, being a clerk of holy or- 
ders himself, and abhorring brutality. 

Chalais, as a king’s man, had adopted in all its heat, the 
court animosity to Cardinal Richelieu. 

“He in a cardinal’s red hat? Rather the pitch cap, and 
I could set it on !” had said the dainty favorite. 

Add to this, Chalais’ still more disloyal threat to poison 
the king with the body linen he handed him as gentleman 
of the wardrobe, and Joseph believed that Louvigny’s re- 
venge would include Prince Gaston and Chalais. 

At least, the dying scoundrel had uttered truth at the 
finale: there was a casket which the butler placed in the 
priest’s power; and, in the simultaneous arrival of the 
bearers of the dead lord, no one paid heed to the uncon- 
querable smile of triumph with which the good father took 
his leave quietly. 

Under a Virgin statue in a street shrine, there was a 
praying recess for the devout. Joseph went into it, and 


A. Viper Dying Exudes Venom. 131 

scanned the contents of the papers in the reliquary. He 
knew what these lines did not make clear. 

“Chalais has escaped the gentleman’s sword to-day!” 
moralized he, “but he cannot the headsman’s! Chalais 
is lost!” 


CHAPTER XI. 


A TOO-WELL-BELOVED QUEEN. 

When, about 1615, the young King of France was 
espoused to the Infanta of Spain, Donna Anne, of Austria, 
daughter of King Philip III., he was already mistrustful ; 
not only did he attach no faith to ambassadors' reports 
but he doubted the court portrait painter! So he could 
not have paid a greater compliment to his bride than in 
saying that she was far above all description. 

As their united ages, at their official wedding, amounted 
but to twenty-eight years, the boy could not be expected to 
betray much virility, but before they met again, in two 
years, he had instigated the murder of Marshal of Ancre 
and otherwise showed that he would not stoop his crest 
to the proud Spanish woman. Though feeble he had in- 
domitable spells of violence, and it was dangerous sport 
to arouse him from his sullen moods. 

It would seem that the queen-mother incited her 
younger son to make his elder jealous. The youth was 
as gay and light as the other was morose and moping. 
But in playing on jealousy, it is meddling with fire in the 
ashes. 

Whether mere rumors, petty tales or calumny built on 
some base, Anne seemed to follow the unwise step of her 
mother-in-law by rousing the connubial pride of her in- 
compatible consort : she flirted, as we would say now, with 


A Too-well-beloved Queen. 


133 


SO many of the courtiers who eagerly flew at the lure, 
after the manner of those favorites, like Essex and Leices- 
ter, who adore the queen for her support in the race for 
the seals and the mace. 

The enumeration of her courtiers is appalling. And to 
make it worse for her, each person on whom she momen- 
tarily cast a pleasing glance became, on finding it impos- 
sible to catch her eye again, an inveterate foe. 

So Count Rochefort fought on her behalf with Count 
Rivarol and was only pronounced forbidding when he re- 
turned to court with a scar on the temple received for her 
sake. This turned Rochefort to assist anyone whom she 
similarly discarded, and the chief among them was Cardi- 
nal Richelieu. 

So, it became a kind of proverb that the queen was dif- 
ferent from other beauties in that all her ex-lovers were 
as full of hate to her as they were hateful to her. 

With this art of making enemies, she never, for a long 
time, won over her husband. 

Yet, if we believe the history of her times, Anne pos- 
sessed personally all the charms to satiate even royal ex- 
igencies. 

Accomplished for a lover, perfect as a queen from the 
subjects’ point of view, she had the majestic beauty which 
inspired affection and respect in the turbulent nobles sur- 
rounding her. 

Tall and well shaped, her hands were the fairest and 
comeliest that ever beckoned a suitor to beseech or im- 
pelled a soldier to die for her. Her blue eyes were prone 


>34 


A Too-well-beloved Queen. 


to enlarge and had a greenish change which gave them 
wondrous transparency. The mouth was small and ver- 
milion red, so that the poets sought other comparison 
than the well-worn rosebud. Her long and silky hair 
had that lively warm hue which gives to the countenances 
it enframes the softness of the blonds and the animation 
of the dark complexioned. 

In 1622 Richelieu obtained the cardinal’s hat, and at 
the same time that he was joyous, the king fell ill. 

*‘What makes the king so pale?” inquired the court. 

“Because the leech (Richelieu) has drawn out all his 
red to dye his hat !” 

The king’s illness made Anjou rise into notice. The 
royal counselor must have suggested that the queen 
should not reprove Duke Gaston for his somewhat too 
pointed attentions, for, in case of death, he would be the 
monarch. 

“Do you mean to tell me that Dr. Bouvard pronounced 
the king’s ail as mortal?” she demanded, trying to pierce 
the already well-schooled lineaments of the plotter. 

“Let us be precise,” returned the other, “for I must not 
inspire your majesty with premature dread. Bouvard 
does not say that the king’s health is shattered, but that 
the illness is of the deadly kind.” 

He spoke the words so truthfully, and the grim tidings 
so closely tied with what she had heard a thousand times, 
that she could not help sighing and frowning. 

Perceiving that he had led her into the susceptible mood, 
the minister went on, warily, for the queen’s Spanish 


A Too-well-beloved Queen. 


>35 


woman, Donna Estefania, was hovering around: “Does 
not your majesty sometimes ponder on the state of things 
if the king were no more?” 

Her face was more and more clouded. 

“This court holds your majesty as a foreigner, and it is 
peopled with enemies ! There is the queen dowager, 
whose enmity is always ready to explode.” 

“I beg to ask why she should detest me?” 

“A woman asks such a question? You are her rival 
in power, as she can no longer be one in beauty and 
youth.” 

“The mother hates me, I allow ; but the family upholds 
me. 

“Th^ royal family, the chief of which is the Duke of 
Anjou. A stripling of fifteen, and more childish than 
any other at fifteen. A chicken heart and a peacock’s 
brain. Where all the desires come to nothing because he 
has no courage, though overmuch ambition. Such a 
gilded reed would bend, nay, break, at the resting on it.” 

He was frank with her; never would he trust to Gas- 
ton; so Gaston and he would never be friends. 

“Is there anyone in such a crotch whom I could rest 
upon ? Could I turn to your eminence ?” 

This was frank of her, too. 

“Yes, you can, majesty, if I am not carried away by 
the torrent. Gaston hates me. He is the spoiled darling 
of Queen Marie; she will sway this doll of wax, and she 
has never forgiven me for having shown your majesty 
tokens of sympathy. If the king dies without lineal heirs, 


136 A Too-well-beloved Queen. 

we are both lost. I shall be sent into my diocese and 
your majesty back to Spain/^ 

Anne shuddered. Spanish royal etiquette condemns a 
widowed queen to dwell ever in the cloister, since she 
would bemean herself to wed any but a king. 

It was a sad perspective to one brought up to expect 
royalty, and, perhaps, a regency to be hers. 

As her duenna was slyly peeping, Anne answered, with 
devoutness : 

“Like other men’s, the fate of kings is in higher hands.” 

The churchman also bowed to this, but quickly ap- 
pended : 

“The ancients were as pious to their gods as we to 
ours, but it was said among them that in trouble one 
should put the shoulder to the wheel. Now, to guard 
yourself, let the king’s will thus read: 

“ ‘During the interregnum awaiting a monarch, let the 
kingdom be governed by the queen as regent, with the 
chief of the council of state to be the Cardinal of Richelieu, 
and the lieutenancy general to be whom your majesty 
pleases.’ ” 

Anne begged a moment to study this proposition. In 
the inner room she spied a substitute for the Spaniard, 
who had retired, seeing how grave had become this in- 
terview. It was the queen’s friend, the Duchess of Chev- 
reuse, who replaced her as watch. 

The duchess gave the queen a sign ; for the moment she 
was to assent to anything. 


A Too-well-beloved Queen. 


137 


So Anne replied that she would be ruled by this coun- 
selor to her predecessor and the king at present reigning. 

“Only,” said she, archly, with the humor now and then 
piercing her constraint through etiquette, “I fear I shall 
little change my jailer — the dull king will be followed 
by a grave, sedate church dignitary.” 

To the amaze of both hearers, the minister burst out 
into a peal of the hearty laughter only heard, it is true, in 
his study. Then he had his cronies about him and was 
playing with his kittens. 

“Save your majesty,” replied he, with a merry voice, 
“I am a cavalier and gentleman before being a church- 
man. I do not pretend to jest like your buffoon, or to 
make sprightly rhymes like your poet, but I can caper as 
did our good Henry IV., when he ought to have been 
sedate for a sovereign, as I for a prelate.” 

“You dance? A cardinal dance?” continued the queen, 
in the same vein, urged on by her confidante’s signs and 
nods. 

If ever a man who never showed youth, looked young, 
it was now, at this meeting halfway. Richelieu, becom- 
ing young again, looked a deal more gallant than a 
cardinal ought to do and more obliging than ministers are 
usually to queens. 

Her uncommonly haughty expression had melted to a 
kindly smile. 

“By the shrine of Compostella,” said she, “if you will 
dance a saraband before me, I will agree to obtain the in- 
sertion of that line in the royal testament, if I can.” 

“Nothing is impossible to such a queen as you,” said 


138 A Too- well-beloved Queen. 

the delighted premier, who kissed her hand and went 
away, believing he had won his point. 

The queen, however, did not believe that the statesman 
would commit such a piece of absurdity. 

“He would do worse, for he is in love with your ma- 
jesty,” said the Duchess of Chevreuse. 

“Brienne’s Memoires” prove that the cardinal no more 
shrank from dancing before the queen than the still graver 
and more sedate Sully, treasurer to King Henry IV., 
to amuse his friends; but, as the two women and one or 
two confidantes made a joke of it, the dancer went away 
in danger. 

They laughed, then, at the anger of the Red Cardinal. 
But they would not have laughed, either of them, if they 
could have measured the wrath of Anne and Richelieu. 

The court had its laugh, and the queen hers, and the 
latter cherished but a faint remembrance. 

The king recovered, thanks to the assiduity of his body 
physician, and his first resumption of private business was 
to tighten the bars around his captive partner’s cage. 

He was too stingy to gild them, too. 

But if the Black Sluggard did not lessen her distaste 
for him thereby, still less did she lean towards “Barba- 
rossa,” her brother-in-law. 

She was too lofty to become a cat’s-paw to schemers; 
she looked for some less dishonorable outcome to these 
frettings than her union with this confirmed traitor, ter- 
giversator and willing fratricide. 

Her isolation increased; the more she adhered to her 


A Too- well-beloved Queen. 139 

Spanish suite and to the strict faith of hard and firm 
bigots, the more this state alarmed her. 

The Duchess of Chevreuse was excellent company, but 
dangerous. The only Frenchman, after her finding those 
with whom she established intimacy at the first, on cor- 
dial terms was Laporta, her gentleman-in-waiting, neither 
fertile in expedients or bellicose to carry others’ ideas into 
execution — he was smiply “Old Honesty.” 

Her cameristas, stubborn in religion and resolved not to 
learn anything in this strange country, were of no utility 
out of her reach. 

Doubting that. Lady Chevreuse after all clung to her 
but to profit herself and her family, she gradually dropped 
threads with the royal family as hostile at heart. The 
Duke of Anjou had bound to him his and the king’s half- 
brothers, the avowed sons of Henry IV. The trio against 
her was Gaston, Caesar Vendome and Alexander, his 
brother. 

In the game of “puss in the corner,” they filled three, 
and the cardinal, whom she had made her life enemy, 
probably, would take the fourth ; she would be in the open, 
without a place. 

She much regretted having perpetrated that practical 
joke of causing the sage adviser to dance at her piping; 
she was inclined to blame the mirthful Lady Chevreuse 
for it. 

She had been cautioned from home and from Italy 
that the ex-counselor of Queen Marie would be her best 
counselor, too, in many crises. 


140 


A Too-well-beloved Queen. 


Again, to conclude with her aversions, there was Qia- 
lais, hated as queens hate all other favorites of their kings, 
^ for sweeping into his pockets the royal consort’s perqui- 
sites: jewels, gifts, offices, presents, favors. 

Chalais’ daily association with the king made him an 
indispensable prop to any plot of the Gastonets. To strike 
him aside was to make him fall and others stagger and 
seek a fresh support. 

Lady Chevreuse, who lost no tittle of the court tattle, 
informed her of the Chalais duel. On learning that a 
youth in her own guards was concerned, that same who 
had defended her guests on the evil night, she learned 
something more of him through his immediate Capt. 
Guitaut. 

It was not likely that the confessor had let out the drift 
of the papers he took from Grammont House, but some- 
thing oozed to give the queen an inkling. 

It was plain that Gaston could do nothing while Riche- 
lieu was friend of the king, especially as the latter was 
his safeguard. 

Queen Anne, without consulting anybody, determined 
to save the premier. 

He might forgive the saraband prank if he was duly 
grateful. 

The cloak was at hand. 

She called in her senior captain, Desessarts, brother- 
in-law of Capt. Treville. 

“My friend,” began she, with sweetness, for she had 
found him and Guitaut, his next officer, soldier-like in 


A Too- well-beloved Queen. 


141 

fair dealing, “I believe that this duel on the public thor- 
oughfare, in which Count Louvigny lost his life, through 
a cadet of Gascony, who figured in the rescue of Lady 
Sansforain from those lordly ladrones, is attached to that 
mournful affair.” 

“By M. D’Artagnan figuring handsomely in both,” re- 
turned the guard’s commander, proud of his recruit. 

“It reminds me, therefore, of that poor, young widow, 
in a retreat at Fleury, shadowed in her opening bloom, 
cut off from society. Oh, I thought from her handwrit- 
ing resembling mine, only better, and her acquaintance 
with Spanish, that she would have made me an excellent 
corresponding dame.” 

“It is never too late; and I believe that she would be 
deeply obliged to your majesty for shortening her term 
of mourning,” said Desessarts, gallantly. 

“I hear that the young lady is pining.” 

“Having had a glimpse of your majesty and this gay 
court. I’ll be bound that she pines.” 

“I promised her very different experience when I was 
her godmother.” 

“Beside a convent, the Louvre should be a vale of 
content. Let us try again to bring her into the palace, 
and, I warrant it, this time, if I may have the selection 
of her escort, she shall enter your presence without a lace 
tippet ruffled,” and he curled his mustache defiantly. 

“That is sure, if you have a file of those D’Artag- 


nans. 


142 


A Too- well-beloved Queen. 


“Thank you for the knight; Guitaut, then, and twenty 
like my good boy, Louis D’Artagnan.” 

“That is my wish. Detach them and send them down 
to Fleury, to bring her hither, poor thing ! Let the guards 
be ample, since she must have no apprehension that the 
event will be repeated that left a bloody bar across her 
road.’’ 

“I do not think those brigands will waylay again after 
the lesson impressed by my young spark.” 

“Oh, they might rise in greater force.” 

“Hem !” — seeing that there was an underorder to the 
order. “I can double the force.” 

She unbent her brows at being divined. 

“The fact is, down at this same Fleury dwells in his 
indisposition the king’s chief counselor.” 

“Ah, my Lord Duke of Richelieu?” 

“He labors too hard for the good of the church and the 
good — humph ! good of the realm.” Desessarts did not 
show the ghost of a smile, though one ought not to let a 
royal jest pass unsaluted. “He is not a strong man, and 
his ailments ” 

“Bah! an astrologer says that the king will outlive 
him by but little, and the king is of the reserved, wiry sort, 
which lives for ever and a day beyond the sappy and 
lusty.” 

But, seeing that his lady did not relish this allusion to 
superstition, more generally believed than mocked at, the 
captain went on, rapidly : “Madam, there are some men 
constituted to bear ills as we soldiers bear armor. We be- 


143 


A Too-well-beloved Queen. 

gin early and become habituated to the added inflictions 
daily. I wish I were as sure to be in command ten years 
hence as the duke of his prime ministry. Death of my 
life ! he is in his prime, and gout, though it may rack, 
is like those cunning torturers who know when the rack 
has been wound up to human endurance, and let go, to 
be freshly applied thereafter. Of all the seats of long- 
evity, give me the cushion of the chief of the royal 
council.” 

“I lose all reliance on you, Desessarts, since you become 
a politician,” laughed the lady. “But I was about to 


“When, unlike a politician, but truly a soldier, I in- 
terrupted your majesty; but, hang it ! I am sinning again.” 

“You have my absolution in advance. It happens that 
at this same Fleury, the cardinal-minister has his country 
seat, where he recovers from his attack. Now, I do not 
want it to be said that I sent a numerous armed force into 
his immediate neighborhood to disturb his rest ” 

“The horses shall be shod in felt; the swords tied to 
the scabbard, and none shall speak above bated breath,” 
said Desessarts, preternaturally solemnly. 

“Ah, but how shoe in felt, how tie the hunting swords 
up and how make the hunting party speak in whispers?” 

“What hunting party, please your majesty?” asked the 
soldier, surprised. 

She enjoyed his ignorance, it not often happening that 
she had the first piece of intelligence. 

“Hunters? Of what? They dare not hunt his emi- 


144 


A Too- well-beloved Queen. 


nence, though I know his red hat irritates some as the 
same hue the bull.” 

“At Fleury, or, at least, hard by, the Duke of Mont- 
bazon allows a hunting meet on his grounds.” 

“Well, the duke is too much of a gentleman to let the 
horns and baying of hounds annoy the brother duke, 
though of later creation.” 

“The duke allows the meet to take place there, but he 
has not left town. He resigns to let Prince Gaston be the 
entertainer of the party; the more proper as they are 
Anjou’s own invited ones.” 

“Oh, oh, oh !” said Desessarts, showing by the gamut 
rising that he comprehended. 

“You see by the noisy ways of his friends in Paris ; what 
must they be in the country ?” 

“Oh, yes, they would not refrain from blowing horns, 
setting the dogs to give tongue and letting the grooms 
shout their lungs sore. With the prince to set the key, 
certainly our poor invalid will have his head — God bless 
my blundering tongue ! — his rest broken ! I think, majesty, 
that fifty men might be of the escort in case we meet the 
noisy hunters on the road.^’ 

“They would pester my lord, out of pure fun.” 

“They would give him a morning serenade with 
whistles, snapping whips and clashing of hunting knives. 
I know the pets incarnate. To sound the tallyho, the 
rally and the death under his sick-room windows would 
be truffles on their toast.” 

Anne smiled meaningly. 


A Too-well-beloved Queen. 145 

‘'After this late outrage giving the wretches ill odor, 
they would all be glad to self-exile themselves. I should 
not wonder if Anjou had a hundred gentlemen to join 
him in the woods.” 

“A hundred,” repeated Desessarts, gravely. “Yes, it 
will need a little army, for they will have their servants 
with them, little better than bravoes and slash-bucklers. 
This promises to be finer than that triple duel on the 
bridge.” 

He coughed, and slyly added : 

“If your majesty could give me leave, I should like to 
go along.” 

“Unfortunately, while my guards can go and bring 
back that young goddaughter of mine,” said the queen, 
with a solemn voice, but her eyes twinkling drolly, “I 
must not launch them forward to prevent my lord cardinal 
being awakened too early.” 

“Oh !” 

“Yes, a few men will suffice to guard M. D’Artagnan 
bearing my letter to release Lady Sansforain from her 
convent.” 

“Oh, a few !” 

“You see that this must not be the queen’s, but the 
king’s affair. The queen hindering Anjou from plaguing 
the king’s counselor ? Fie ! What does she in that gal- 
ley? Now, the king’s guards shielding his minister — 
what more seemly!” 

“It is seemly enough,” admitted Desessarts, sadly. 

“Another time, then, for your evidence of bravery and 


146 A Too- well-beloved Queen. 


generalship, my dear captain. Meanwhile, you have but 
to breathe a word to your brother of the royal muske- 
teers ” 

“Treville?’’ 

'‘Capt. Treville. Surely, at present, he regularly sup- 
plies the cardinal with a detachment of musketeers ” 

"‘On the face of it, he supplies them,'' granted the 
guards' officer, with a dry smile. 

“So, it is fully within his duty to dispatch a reinforce- 
ment to Fleury, without becoming identified with my 
own escort going to bring Lady Sansforain to town, they 
protect the prime minister. What more natural?" 

“I defy the spitefullest slanderer of the palace to say 
there is anything unnatural in that." 

“Then, the musketeers will fend off those hunters of the 
—the " 

“I take it they aim at the red boar." 

The queen laughed. 


CHAPTER XII. 

IN WHICH D^ARTAGNAN HOPES THE SECOND INVITATION 
WILL INDUCE A LONGER STAY THAN THE FIRST. 

“It is a very good and womanly thought of your ma- 
jesty/’ Desessarts took the liberty to remark, about to go 
forth, “for I am sure that the young lady will remember 
more clearly the radiant face of our young champion in 
the glow of battle than her husband’s, cold in death.” 

“He shall bear the invitation,” replied the queen. “I 
shall have it written, and I am to see him so that I may 
confide it to him by my own hand.” 

“He will defend it, then, so closely that I defy the best 
spies of the Duke of Anjou to read a line of it.” 

Desessarts went out, a little crossed that he should not 
lead a command to oppose the prince of the realm, for he 
had an idea that both his brother and himself would never 
be promoted under his new rule. 

“However,” thought he, “this is a good thing for our 
little lion cub. So far he has not been run through by 
any of the Anjou faction, but this cannot be for long. It 
is true that, by taking this tour, he will be again up against 
the same set, but I am not afraid of that kind of fighting. 
It is the cutthroats in the dark that I fear.” 

When he saw the involuntary smile break out on the 
Gascon’s lips on hearing that he was to see Lady Sans- 
forain once more, and under warrant of the queen’s mis- 


148 


A Longer Stay. 

sive, the worthy commander was sure that the widow 
need not be long remarrying if she did not disdain a 
subaltern in the queen’s guards. The little corps was 
pleased to have the country saunter with a collision with 
their old enemies in the prospect, while Guitaut took all 
in, as a page in the day book ; D’Artagnan would have 
seemed going to be appointed a musketeer, his ambition. 

But he was not yet desirous of cutting loose from his 
present quarters. Guitaut and Desessarts both regarded 
their mistress as the pivot of the intrigues. The future 
of royalty dwelt in her. If ever she were to be mother of 
the next monarch, she must be loyally and manfully de- 
fended, however statesmen and princes warred. 

‘‘Guitaut,” said the senior to Guitaut, on apprising 
him of his errand with its side and secret “rider,” “it is 
amusing, but we are going to defend the prime man of the 
state. He is no longer the incubus, to the queen, at 
least.” 

The younger soldier was taciturn. He fought as told 
and for what end never worried him. 

“Do this mission dexterously, for there is more in it 
than meets the eye. You will be supported by the muske- 
teers, for I am going to consult Capt. Treville to induce 
him to preside over the expedition.” 

Guitaut had taken a fancy for his youngest sub-officer, 
and he called him to him. 

“Louis,” said he, “have you been tormented since your 
second crossing with the Gaston party?” 

“I have had quarrels picked with me; but, somehow. 


149 


A Longer Stay. 

I got out without anything serious coming. The fact is, 
when a man, by luck, has gone through such a combat of 
thirty to one, as in defense of the young widow, why, no 
one presses him against the wall.” 

“I do not doubt that the Duke of Anjou would wear 
roses on the day of your death.” 

“That would not matter — his hostility — but I do not 
know where to elude it. He seems to have friends every- 
where in and out of France.” 

“You prefer the pan to the coals. Perhaps you are 
right. When I was younger” — Guitaut always spoke of 
himself as if fourscore — “if I were pursued in the street, 
which always fretted me, I used to turn a corner, wait 
and fall upon those who thought they were going to catch 
up and fall on me.” 

“I presume they were private foes. Now, I am enemy 
to the princes of the royal house, for the Bourbons hold 
with Gaston, like crabapples, all on bough.” 

“The easier to cut them all off at a blow,” returned the 
other, grimly. “Only stand from under. The steel cap 
is going out. Well it may, for I would rather wear the 
cardinal’s cap than a steel morion when such apples 
fall.” 

“To be short with it, you do me a favor in selecting 
me to accompanying you into the country, where, it ap- 
pears, we are going to lend aid to the cardinal.” 

“No, no, to lend a hand to the musketeers, whose busi- 
ness it is to protect the royal minister.” 

“Really, while I am ready to die for the king and the 


150 A Longer Stay. 

queen, I am not so eager to sacrifice the last of the Artag- 
nans to a duke of to-day, and a priest.” 

“You forget that he is a priest in a red gown ; now, it is 
not only more potent as mantle for the wearer, but it is 
large enough to cover him who stands beside him. Hence, 
to trample on Richelieu, drags the protection off the king, 
and we cannot allow that.” 

“In a few words, we go down to Fleury to fortify the 
cardinal’s summer resort?” 

“For that, and another matter or two.” 

“Is it thought that the plotters would harm the king’s 
adviser ?” 

“Why not, if he advises against them all ? Besides, one 
of the Vendomes is grand prior of France, so that he 
could grant grace to the slayer of the prelate, not so far 
above him. I should not lose much if I wagered that the 
plot is more of the two Bourbons than Gaston, and more 
of Chalais for his own pocket than for his new prince.” 

“I do not think you are tender with Qialais; he is 
brave.” 

“Oh, the Talleyrands are all brave. As well praise the 
hound that hunts and the dog that retrieves — it is in the 
blood. But all these favorites are alike — selfish, and 
without more gratitude than I could scrape up on my 
thumb. This count would not only look on while they 
rolled the minister away, and the king as well, in a horse- 
blanket and carried them off to some place of security; 
but he would lift up the flap so that the cutthroats could 
stab. Ah, catch me letting my favorite be my barber, as 


A Longer Stay. 15 1 

Louis XL did, or my shoemaker, as Henry IV. did, for 
the one would maim me and the other lame me — all out 
of their innate lack of gratitude.’" 

“Chalais is too dainty to be brutal with the prelate?” 

“Think that? Then you will swallow water for Rhen- 
ish. But wait ! Our errand, if I do not mistake, will lead 
to the pretty count’s nose being put out! We are not 
only going to Fleury to assist the musketeers to shelter 
the cardinal, but — but did not some one tell you ?” 

“What? I have no confidants here. As soon as the 
queen’s Spanish attendants suspected from my being 
their neighbor as a Gascon, that I could understand Span- 
ish, they gave me the cold shoulder. To be sure, their 
shoulders are bony and high, so that cold or warm, they 
did not interest me. But, alas! I know nothing.” 

“Not that you are to request the fair widow of that 
poor Baron Sansforain to return to the court and to stay, 
this time, at the queen’s pleasure?” 

D’Artagnan acted as though no hint had come from the 
superior. 

“Well, you are to be the bearer of a letter to request 
her return ; a pretty honor to have me and a troop to escort 
you, as bearer of a queen’s letter.” 

“What honor?” 

“What rapture? you young hypocrite! Ah, these Gas- 
cons ! But, since the lady in weeds does not interest 
you, though you fought for her, let another carry the 
letter, and have her company back to town. I could ap- 
point ” 


152 


A Longer Stay. 

“Capt. Guitaut, you go too far. I cling to the honor of 
carrying the letter. I confess that I desire the farther one 
of escorting that beauty back to court. But,” and his 
brow clouded, “the queen would not reinvite her to en- 
snare the king, would she ?” 

“Ensnare a stuffed image ? This is a true princess, our 
Lady Anne.” 

The young man knew that Guitaut thus early betrayed 
an exaggerated devotion to his mistress. 

“So much the better. No influence can warp that di- 
vine creature from the right — no specious reasonings train 
her. There will always be kings and queens ” 

“And favorites.” 

“But only such nonpareil now and then.” 

“I see that one day your page will be carrying a letter to 
this dame of your heart as you are carrying the queen’s 
to her now.” 

“Oh, you all see too much, including the queen.” 

“Young sir, make yourself distinguished in the queen’s 
service. They often repay such services by giving their 
hand to kiss and another hand to be united to the serv- 
itor’s.” 

“What, do you know?” 

“I foretell. Well, you do not ask leave, but you ac- 
company us to Fleury, though you will probably meet a 
dozen to twenty of the Gastonets in our march.” 

“I am loath to believe that they would attack a sick man 
in his bed.” 

“Do you want to see that? After Louvigny, I should 


A Longer Stay. 153 

think you could believe in cowardice. Among his kind, 
at all events. Pho !” 

‘‘Captain/' said the young soldier, lowering his voice, 
“this time I shall have to come to end with it. A man 
cannot last who has a prince of the blood his foe. I am 
only carrying a letter, you will say, but as that letter is 
to the first woman who escaped the prince’s clutches, it 
is my death warrant, if I run foul of him.” 

“I grant it. A man who makes a prince box his own 
ears !” 

D’Artagnan’s punishment of the head of Anjou, had 
greatly rejoiced all Paris, and the soldiers most of all. 

“All is known, you see. If I encounter the duke, it 
must be he or I.” 

“Bah ! The king will pardon you for removing his bur- 
den. Not only did he reward the slayers of Marshal An- 
cre, but he egged them on.” 

“Oh, I do not want royal sanction or incentive to strike, 
if to defend my skin.” 

“I do not know whether I do well to you or to him by 
taking you out of Paris; but ” 

“A letter from the queen, to be borne to its destination 
by M. D’Artagnan,” announced a servant. 

“Take it, and bear it with a light heart. May it be your 
amulet to its delivery, and then ” 

“Oh, the addressee will be my good angel thereafter,” 
returned D’Artagnan, with his usual high spirits re- 
turned. 

Instead of a probation in the guards, D’Artagnan might 


154 


A Longer Stay. 

by a deed of distinction win transfer into the musketeers. 
Why might it not be that chance now presenting? 

As the selected men began their preparations, their 
commander returned from his visit to his relative. 

These two captains were dogs guarding a bone which 
the commander of the prime minister’s guards tried to 
steal away entirely for himself. 

It required a hand rough and tight to handle the image 
of soapstone which Richelieu sought to mold, this Gaston, 
and he gave it up, preferring to manipulate Louis, and to 
preserve him beyond the life of his union, if possible. The 
king, after he had been rejected by Anne in trying to ob- 
tain her alliance, was his sole support. 

As Treville would defend his master like the mastiff, 
he approved of Treville’s station, and agreed to make it 
permanent. Above all, he felt that while Treville would 
have arrested him at the altar of the cathedral, he would 
not injure him by an underhand move. 

The captain judged the aspiring prelate fairly. But he 
could not believe that France would content so grasping 
an intellect; he believed he aimed at the papacy. 

And he saw nothing but good in a French occupant of 
St. Peter’s chair. 

So he aided Richelieu and was the first to accede to part 
of his regiment becoming the cardinal’s guards, under 
command of his lieutenant, Cavoye. 

The advice from his relative set Treville thinking. 

He had fought the Spanish, and he did not like them ; he 
had no love for the queen from that country. He dis- 


155 


A Longer Stay. 

trusted her kindness to the minister, and charitably sur- 
mised that she was in the plot, denounced through the pa- 
pers found by Father Joseph at Grammont House, and 
was trying to create a defense in case she was accused in 
connection with it. 

But a gift of this nature must be taken and then scru- 
tinized. 

Because, contrary to his nature, Treville’s bluntness de- 
lighted Louis, Treville had strengthened it, but refined it 
for his purposes. 

He went straight to the monarch. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


IT IS HARD TO MOLD JELLY WITH A HOT SPOON. 

Always brooding, the absence of his prime minister 
changed his brown study into a black one. The casual in- 
dispositions of statesmen throw the burden of affairs on 
the sovereign, and he sees, commonly, that it is too great 
for one man. 

The king was sketching a new idea in a firearm, and 
he frowned at being interrupted — inventors, even when 
royal, or because they are royal, detest interruptions. 

“Another arrest to make?’’ said he. 

Formerly he would have said : “Another plot ?” 

Now that Richelieu had the whip hand, no one de- 
bated about plots, but some one was sent into exile or a 
prison ; then the debates followed, if any were allowed. 

“This time it is the partridge again,” returned the mus- 
keteer captain, with coolness. “It is a concert of all your 
majesty’s enemies.” 

“Must we send a special messenger for the cardinal- 
duke?” asked Louis, sighing. 

Treville had posted himself like a sentry before a side 
door under the tapestry so that his lord should not escape,” 
of which he was capable. 

“Is this plot the reason the cardinal-duke has shut him- 
self up in his fort at Fleury?” 

“Oh, no; since it is not at him any more than at any 


To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 157 

of your majesty’s living shields that the machination is 
leveled.” 

“Ah !” with the weariness of one who had worn the 
crown long enough to be not altogether unwilling to 
throw it away. Although he would resent its being 
plucked off. 

Treville revealed not only what the brother-in-law had 
told him, but what he had been informed upon by Riche- 
lieu. But the soldier exposed it unadorned and called 
murder in its six letters so that the king, who was squeam- 
ish, could not mistake. 

History records monarchs who laid down the scepter 
and retired from business, but few or none are the in- 
stances of pretenders and usurpers who gave up without 
a deadly struggle. 

Whether Louis, the Dismal, was son of Henry IV., the 
Garrulous and Jovial, or of the wily, secretive Vittorio 
Orsini, cavalier-servant to Queen Marie, he was, as 
wielder of the scepter, armed at all points, like a porcupine, 
against anyone asserting a claim on that wand. 

He felt, as a personal wrong, those very traits which 
pointed out Harry’s base sons as his veritable offspring. 
The fat Vendomes were jolly, ruddy, unctuous, true to 
their partisans, and gay. 

They might have been also opposed to Gaston, whose 
paternity is also tainted with the Italian characteristics, but 
he had, at any early age, noticed what were the winning 
points, and he imitated them, or cultivated them, so that 


1^8 To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 


the Ven domes liked him, and, what is more wonderful, 
believed in him. 

It was plain to Treville, then, that the Duke of Anjou, 
after forming an alliance with his two half-brothers and 
with Heaven knows what powers without the kingdom, 
had arranged a hunting party at Montbazon’s hunting 
lodge, so convenient to make a swoop upon Fleury Manor. 
What would they do, then? If not kill the cardinal in a 
scuffle, for his men would contend stoutly, he would be 
passed over the frontier in a closed vehicle. This would 
isolate the king and spread confusion. 

Louvigny’s notes of Chalais’ engagements left nothing 
to conjecture. That removal of the chief minister was 
preparatory to displacing King Louis by his brother. 
Richelieu’s place was promised to the grand prior, with 
control of the church offices and the treasury, while his 
brother conducted the army. 

Treville, far-seeing or gallant, kept the queen’s part and 
name out of the project. 

'T suppose Caesar and Alexander think their names 
carry a predestined glory,” sneered Louis, with his thin 
lips curved in a bitter smile. 

The musketeer saw that, as usual, he was completely be- 
lieved and kept silent. Accustomed to that mask, he drew 
conclusions from the scarcely perceptible play of the well- 
controlled features. 

“If there is foundation for this, there are three heads to 
the offending,” proceeded Louis, grasping the window 


To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 159 

ledge so tightly that his sallow hands became almost white 
with loss of blood. 

But his eyes remained like glass, reflecting what had 
luster without. Nothing pierced. 

“The number of the heads little matters if they are guilt- 
ful,’’ observed the soldier in a judge’s tone. 

“But my brother, my own brother !” broke forth Louis, 
giving way to his feelings, which were enigmatical. 

Treville was pondering. He could not imagine Riche- 
lieu, or any minister, sufficiently exacting and popularly 
powerful as to command three royal or quasi-royal heads 
to be lopped off on a scaffold, public or private. 

“It is trying to do too much with one ax,” acknowl- 
edge he, matter-of-fact like. “Better a dungeon’s mi- 
asma.” 

This allusion to Marshal Ornano’s dungeon at Vin- 
cennes, “worth its weight in arsenic,” did not disturb the 
monarch a jot; it was almost a confession of his guilty 
complicity to hear that unheeding. 

Inwardly, the musketeer reminded him of this in dis- 
gust at the bolder execution not being preferred ; but, for 
the moment, though he could wish his enemies, being the 
king’s, out of the way, he consented to a muzzle instead 
of the ax. In the first place, he must save the cardinal, 
and, since the king might be in a malleable mood, he sought 
to strike the bargain. 

“It must be something between neck or nothing!” 
thought he. “Here goes, whether the cardinal makes me 
return or not. Without my pushing them into the heads- 


i6o To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 


man’s hands, those hatchers of bad eggs will come to a 
bad end.” 

“Sire!” said he, quietly, “your head minister keeps all 
his senses in the employment of your majesty so that he 
neglects precautions for himself. It was not of his involi- 
tion that Cavoye was given him with a squad to protect 
him from those enemies of yours, who are his. When 
Marshal Ornano was imprisoned, your friend, Count 
Chalais, begged mercy for him. Though, as Ornano was 
not his tutor as he was Prince Gaston’s, I never could 
understand why he begged for him.” 

Louis frowned at the name. 

“It was to him, Chalais, that the minister promised that 
the marshal should not sutler on the scaffold ; he did not. 
Now, I guarantee that his eminence, naturally humane, 
and this doubled by his holy office, never seeks the death 
of the sinner. No, not even imprisonment, if they forego 
this eternal cultivating of ill weeds. It is deadly things 
that flourish in their plots. But, as he is the bulwark to 
your majesty and they are seeking to undermine him — 
remove him, what do I say? Your majesty should so 
save him that they will never attempt such mischief in 
the future.” 

“Ah, Treville, if this were the last, last time,” sighed 
Louis, from the depths. It was the tone of a despairing 
traveler told of firm land while ever floundering in the 
quagmire. 

“Sire, I answer that this rebuff for the indignity to one 
who wears your highness’ cognizance in his heart, if his 


To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. i6i 

robe is the church’s, should be complete, not to be imitated. 
How ignoble it will be if the cardinal’s tenants, grooms 
and stablemen beat off the prince’s tramplers, with hedge 
stakes and pitchforks. Let such attacks on your majesty’s 
servitors be not openly and by armed men in your coats, 
sire !” 

“So, so!” mumbled the king, seeing that he was to be 
led to identify himself with the cardinal’s defenders and 
consequently range as his brother’s indisputable foe. 

“What are the cardinal’s guards, since they are drawn 
from our well, let me not disparage them ; but they and his 
few gentlemen pensioners and a visitor or two, who may 
be in the house paying his respects — why, these hack- 
swords of the riotous prince, saving your presence, will 
eat them up by the handfuls.” 

Cavoye will tickle the throat going down,” said the 
sovereign, who, being fond of fencing, had had the ex- 
lieutenant of his bodyguard at the end of his sword more 
than once. “He would not have many around him in 
his study,” agreed Louis. 

“Just the clerks to work with him. And, by the way,” 
suddenly said Treville, though he had the plea early on 
his mind, “what about the state papers, the seal, state and 
private, the reports which go to him, if the ill-meaning 
swooped upon them?” 

“Captain, you were never more right. We must pro- 
tect the state papers as well as the statesmen. Reinforce 
Cavoye,” said the cautious prince. 

“Oh, my lord I” reproached the chief of the bodyguards. 


i62 To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 

“I send my men to act under orders of Capt. Cavoye, the 
cardinal’s guardsman? Never would my men perform 
such orders with a gleeful heart. And, then, the cardinal 
would not accept that honor as a full one.” 

“He has so much humility,” returned he, sarcastically. 

“Nay, in all he does it is for your grace’s glory.” 

So far, Louis had refrained from sending armed men 
against his erring brother, contenting with having inter- 
views with him when the younger yielded as a mouse is 
supine under the cat’s claw ; on the face all was fraternal. 
This time it would not be like a street wraiigle, where even 
a prince might be knocked over the head, and no one 
would be to blame; a conflict at Fleury would be like a 
skirmish preliminary to a pitched battle. 

“Let him have what you think meet,” he assented, 
slowly. 

“Cavoye, or the cardinal-duke?” 

There was no shifting with this straightforward soldier. 

“Let them act as their lieutenants see fit, but always un- 
der the cardinal’s orders. The pontiff can be depended on 
not to precipitate the falling of blows.” 

He could not help smiling, and the captain saw that. 

He laughed outright and compelled his master to join 
him. Both knew that this invalid, this sickly student, had 
expressed his intention to take to the field in the next 
war. 

Louis held out his hand languidly to him; he had 
enough of it. Treville saluted as if he were courtier no 
longer, but simply warrior. 


To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 163 

Twenty minutes after, the trumpets sounded arouse. 
Then the musketeers’ quarters also rang with a hundred 
voices. The last courier had brought news that the 
Spanish were massing in Franche-Comte. None could 
doubt among these men, bred and born for wars, that war 
was lowering. 

A southern camp of observation would be established, 
and, as the cardinal was ill, the king might distract him- 
self from his loneliness by going to review his troops. 

So there was little comment on the march out of some 
sixty of the musketeers, as if to precede and set up quar- 
ters for the king, soon to follow with his traveling equi- 
page. The court strategists had the route cut and dried, 
and the crowd at the gates repeated the list of tours to be 
passed through. 

The palace guard suffered no diminution by this de- 
tachment. For, as the lifeguard was composed of gently- 
born persons only, and there were many chivalric gentle- 
men in town, some of whom were buried in debt and 
tainted with fashionable vices, including dabbling in keep- 
ing gaming houses, making counterfeit money for circu- 
lation on the border, and amusing dinner tables, they 
hastened to enroll in the musketeers or to claim active oc- 
cupation, since generally, their names had been long ago 
inscribed. 

Evidently, as the ladies reported to the queen to annoy 
her, a war with her brother in Spain would be popular. 

Capt. Treville summoned into his private office three of 


164 To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 

the troopers, who, at least by name, are not strangers 
to us. 

Three were anything but strangers to D’Artagnan. 
They were his only Parisian friends, counselors and com- 
rades. 

‘T see, Aramis,’^ said one of these, circumspect, serious, 
superb in bearing, using a melodious though somewhat sad 
voice of marked purity and distinction at a time when the 
language was bristling with obsolete words and familiar 
phrases, ‘‘this is not merely a tour to dazzle the milkmaids 
and boors before the village wine shops.’' 

Aramis, slight, gentle, with a very keen eye set in re- 
fined features of a thoughtful cast, looked up from taking 
a map off the wall to spread it on a table. 

“Yes, Athos, this is something more than a ride around 
with the king to a country seat, after dogs bark. I had be- 
gun to think we were to handle everything with gloves on. 
Ah ! still we are far from the times when a Visconti or a 
Medicis were stabbed in a cathedral choir, or, to bring my 
instances nearer home, a marshal of France could be 
hacked to pieces out there.” 

A burly musketeer had slightly resented the map clear- 
ing the table of sundry flagons and a tray with cold food, 
fried river fish and bread ; he stopped scoffing at the chart 
and boisterously said: 

“Yes, they choke prisoners now in the dungeon gases. 
The sword cutlers have gone out of business who forged 
knives for the last two Henrys.” 

“Hush, Porthos ! and let us know why you wanted 


To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 165 

Aramis to unfold a map before you. Do you think it is 
the ‘Addresses of the Hundred Impenitent Scarlet Women 
of Paris?”’ 

“Scarlet women, forsooth. Are we not likely to have 
more trouble with the Scarlet Man, who, if he is lost for 
the time, will come out of his study with a new plan of 
war, by which we shall have our corps decimated? This 
comes from having a churchman to govern an army.” 

“Hum, Porthos !” returned Aramis, who, from having 
been educated for holy orders, was piqued by this slur, 
“for a churchman, he pretty well drove the Spanish out of 
the Valteline and defied the pope to make serfs of the 
original proprietors.” 

“But what do you see on your map?” asked Athos, to 
turn the discussion. 

The second of D’Artagnan, in his encounter with Cha- 
lais and company, had leaned both elbows on the map to 
hold it firm ; several comrades looked over his broad shoul- 
ders, and his small eyes twinkled with confidence and con- 
ceit, as he replied: 

“I told you all along that there must be war with Spain. 
We are going to have done with this perverse creature 
who swills olive oil without getting fat, and devours 
oranges without getting mellow and sweet. For my part, 
after assembling our forces in Languedoc and Gascony” — 
he eclipsed half the map by applying his round fore- 
fingers to the spots cited — “I should throw men over the 
mountains ” 


“Bravo ! Porthos could do it, but even grant he could 


i66 To Mold Jelly With a Hot Spoon. 

throw a man and his steed, it would take time at a man 
at a throw.” 

should do it, and march into the Escurial Palace.” 

“Hail, Strategist Porthos ! Spain is carried and har- 
ried ! Eh, Athos, if he writes out his plan, will you not 
lay it before the king?” 

“Gentlemen, it is infallible, if Porthos' thumb were a 
viaduct.” 

“It is a strong hand,” said Aramis, cajolingly, smiling 
as he patted with his fine, soft hand the enormous neck of 
the musketeer, much as a dwarf caresses an envied giant, 
over whom intimacy and close study of the few but 
marked traits gives a mastery. 

Amid the laughter, an usher opened a door and called 
out : 

“The captain seeks Athos, Aramis and Porthos !” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE COMMAND TO ATHOS. 

The three walked towards the captain’s cabinet. 

They were introduced into the anteroom, but thence ad- 
mitted severally. 

Treville was almost gloomy. He who had spent months 
confirming the animosity of Louis against the ever-mag- 
nifying Richelieu, was in the situation being compelled to 
serve this foe or incline entirely towards the faction 
dooming his king to deposition, if not death. 

If, in his rage at this direct attack, the cardinal, victori- 
ous, stamped out the very brands, Treville would lose 
his occupation; out of the extinguished embers would no 
longer burst the flames of rebellion and insubordinacy 
which made his sword up to now as valuable as the state- 
helmsman’s pen. 

''Count of La Fere,” said he, to this soldier, giving him 
his true title in token that this parley was on a solid topic, 
"you are not the one, versed in doings and sayings, not 
to divine that his majesty’s lifeguards do not go out armed 
for war merely to parade the highway.” 

The count bowed as if he were in the throne room and 
not a military satrap’s cabinet. 

"In short, there is a plot, with a head, this time ; one to 
entrap the prime minister at his country residence.” 

"The trap need be strong and watched closely. The 


The Command to Athos. 


168 

cardinal, for all he is sick, is the one to carry away trap 
and all to where he could have it struck off his foot. I 
have seen wolves thus foil the trappers in our hills.’’ 

“Yes, but he is in danger. There may be hunters ready 
to support the trap.” 

“Well, the timoneer is always in danger, in quiet seas 
as in stormy ones. There are sunken rocks.” 

“Under guise of a hunting party, the enemies of his 
eminence will have power to surround his seat.” 

“If they go in force. I hear that we are fifty?” 

“Sixty — threescore ! There will be a troop of the 
queen’s guards in touch ” 

“We require assistance?” cried Athos, with the muske- 
teers’ vanity. 

“Oh, the country around may be malevolent towards his 
eminence, who bought pieces to add to his property, 
through agents, and so the vendors, who know their cus- 
tomers too late, hate them for making a good bargain. 
They will aid his enemies.” 

“Boors !” 

“All that, but they learned a good deal in the late 
wars. But the guards do not go down with the orders to 
assist you ; they are simply escorting a queen’s messenger, 
who has a letter for a lady in the neighborhood.” 

“It should be an autograph to be guarded as carefully as 
a premier’s health.” 

“Well, I have seen the first letter the queen wrote to 
our ruler ; on the occasion of their troth. She pledged her- 
self to do all that was agreeable to her mother — a dutiful 


The Command to Athos. 


169 

daughter then, she is no doubt a dutiful spouse now — so 
that I expect she wishes to please her husband. To cheer 
him she must be cheerful herself, so she writes for a song 
bird, of the superior of a religious house by Fleury.^’ 

'‘A song bird?’’ 

“Oh, in human shape. This song bird having lost her 
mate, pitches a sorrowful key — to bring her out at the 
court, where she is foreset to charm, is necessary for her 
health.” 

“Oh, the queen is again going to try to have the com- 
pany of Lady Sansforain in the palace?” 

Treville was not surprised at his soldier being so well 
instructed. 

“That being so, you will understand that we are execut- 
ing a diversion. It is an axiom that no man can be in two 
places at once. Well, if the Duke of Anjou is down there 
harassing the cardinal, it is positive that he cannot again 
waylay the donna on her road to Paris the second time.” 

“To do so would be to insult the queen twice, and I 
would rather not have done it once. Sir, the Spanish, 
more so than the Italians, like their revenge as a side dish, 
cold ! I think this doubly ingenious,” Athos continued. 
“This hunting party — it will not scruple to go in the broad 
sunlight to assail Fleury?” 

“I doubt that, by your leave. The Duke Gaston pro- 
ceeds like the banditti, whose manners he apes. He failed, 
it is true, in the early hours of the night. Now, he will, 
I think, hound on his men at the late ones. He knows the 
statesman’s habits. He works in the night, rests a little, 


170 The Command to Athos. 

and rises betimes. To catch him in his rest in the small 
hours will surprise him.’' 

“I am not so sure that Richelieu can be taken by sur- 
prise.” 

“He will be this time, by numbers, if we had not the 
warning.” 

“Oh, it is worthy of your excellence, captain, to warn 
one not too much your warm friend, I fear.” 

“I ? Higher than that !” 

“Then it is proper of the king, since the premier is in- 
valuable to him, who likes not clerkly work.” 

“Not he; but on the same line.” 

“Never the queen. The queen saves the cardinal?” 
ejaculated Athos, with unwonted frankness. 

“Because he is a churchman and she a devout, and she 
wishes to do good to her enemies,” said the captain, try- 
ing to look meek. 

“I see !” cried the Count of La Fere, after cogitation. 

“You always see farther in the millstone than I, my 
dear count.” 

“I see that the queen has been hurt by the loose and yet 
emphatic way in which she is, by the forecasters, foisted 
into a second marriage with the next prince of the house 
royal.” 

“That offends woman, does it?” 

“It hurts a queen in her pride. I am certain that her 
imagination saw that if an attack was made on the cardi- 
nal’s house, it would be in the wolf’s hours. So, as the 
redoubtable Gaston is safe to stand in the rear of the as- 


The Command to Athos. 


171 

saulting column, a stray shot, or even a silver inkstand 
hurled at the men coming up the ladder and striking the 
hooter-on at th^ foot, will, in some likelihood, make a 
candidate for the royal vaults in St. Denis Abbey, of my 
Lord of Anjou.” 

“In good faith, my dear Athos,” said Treville, firmly, 
“if you think the queen looks ahead like that, I rank myself 
on her side from this hour. She hates the cardinal-duke 
as much as he does her — no? at least, she hates Gaston 
more.” 

“My dear captain, if there is a Spaniard in the train of 
this highway prince, I should not lift an eyebrow if he 
were to fall with a hole in his head or his breast. Some 
one will have shot him with the very weapon he provided : 
love for his own queen.” 

“If he be not better paid for it than usually queens rec- 
ompense their loving servants, then Prince Gaston will be 
slain cheap.” 

“It appears to me,” went on the count with his calm, 
“that the report made to you for the king will have the red 
line, if it mentions that in repelling the midnight storm- 
ing party, there fell, by an unknown hand, one of the 
princes ” 

“One of them !” 

“Why, the cardinal-duke is equally inimical to Gaston, 
Caesar and Alexander.” 

“Hello! do you think all the stormy birds flock to- 
gether ?” 


172 


The Command to Athos. 


“They are courageous enough to lead where Gaston will 
shout ‘On, on!’ in the rear. That is how he backs his 
friends.” 

Treville brooded. 

“It would look a terrible judgment, in some eyes, if 
such a holocaust of royal princes occurred when a prince 
of the church was reached at in his own bedroom.” 

“Terrible!” said the wise, noble musketeer, “but most 
will would attribute the judgment to the king and coun- 
cil. I suppose, then, than you would give me the private 
advice, since, I assume, I am chosen for the momentous 
expedition, to prevent ” 

“In the first place, to prevent the king’s representative 
being injured, as you would the king’s person. After- 
wards, as the sons of royal sires should not die like com- 
mon men, prevent them being carried away as dead out 
of the nocturnal scuffle. Now, Athos, I am aware that 
you gentlemen of the king’s military household do not 
like Richelieu for being so soon duke and peer, and that 
his robe offends you. Well, I have sympathy with the 
man, for he is son of a soldier, like myself, and many 
another. Above all, and what I am certain of, he loves 
France. He will be loyal to his native land, spite of all. 
You raise your brows at that? Well, he is a Frenchman 
first, a prelate next. He had no money — he now fills his 
purse out of the public coffers. As long as he expends it 
in France, I care not. As long, too, as he is faithful to 
our master, hang his little squabbles and foibles, let him 


The Command to Athos. 


173 

scribble tragedies while he lets us act sublime concep- 
tions on that stage called the battlefield of Europe. 

“If that Chalais were minister, he would set Henry IV. 
as model to his son as the gallant lover of every Madge, 
Kate and Annabella in Christendom; instead, as the car- 
dinal does, hold up the knightly king as a warrior. If 
Richelieu is to perish, let it be, if my will has anything 
to do with it, in his state bed, by the stroke of Provi- 
dence. No more knives poisoned as under the Floren- 
tines, no more butchery as of Concini on the bridge.” 

“I am with you, captain,” said the other, without en- 
thusiasm. “Only a rare man could so boldly challenge 
the antagonism of the exalted ” 

“Bah ! exalted by freak of birth ! Woe to us all, soldier 
and statesman, if a Gaston follow this Louis ! As for the 
Lords Caesar and Alexander, let me return to my home 
with my sword sheathed rather than follow them in their 
hare-brained ventures. Caesar is partial to Thais, and 
would let the Louvre be burned down if she wanted lights 
on her way through the gardens, and Alexander wishes 
to be cardinal, and what glistens on the Roman hills be- 
yond, rather than command the army.” 

“Then we secure the principals, not wound them, as 
lesson to players with those keen-edged tools, conspirers 
against the head.” 

“Oh, you would be lucky if you could put out all these 
brands on the one hearth, the cardinal’s, with one pail of 
water.” 

“Water leaves no stain like blood. Well, in two words 


174 


The Command to Athos. 


we save the minister and we spare the princes, if they join 
in the assault?” 

“It is so delicate a task that I rely on so noble a man as 
you. Ah, Athos, in going out, you might repeat my de- 
sire to chat with the Knight of Herblay.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE MISSION TO ARAMIS. 

Under his real name, there being no masks worn here, 
the musketeer saluted his commander. 

“Sir,” began the latter, as Aramis stood at ease most 
exquisite, “I do not believe for a moment that you believe 
for a moment that the king’s soldiers of elite are recruit- 
ing sergeants ” 

“Decidedly! You' do not mistake me for a military 
proselyter. We are like the boy who takes the pastry 
under the hedge, obtained with difficulty and eats it to his 
own teeth. Ostensibly, we parade before the clods, but — 
what are the secret orders, sir?” 

“You come of a Breton family identified with the 
church. You studied for that profession, but you have a 
bias for mortal arms I” 

“Captain, some sow their wild oats out of an alms bag, 
some out of a student’s satchel; I, out of a steel cap! 
When I expect the crop, after the next war, I expect, too, 
to have satisfied my latent allegiance to Bellona, sly snake 
in the grass ! and I shall seek my grain in the study or the 
chapel.” 

“In that case, you have time!” 

“Are we not at last to brush against the Spanish?” 
cried Aramis, with too loud surprise and disappointment 
in a contained young man like him to be natural. 


The Mission to Aramis. 


176 

“My dear Cuirass quilted with a presbyter’s gown,” 
responded the warrior, humorously, showing that he was 
no dupe, “the ruler of Spain will never order his gunners 
to lay a gun towards the Louvre as long as his sister is 
mistress of it. He will bluster, but not yet will there be 
war. But have no biting of lip over that! Your street 
encounters keep your weapons from rusting, and they are 
winked at. But the Parisians hear from their country 
cousins that they never get a sight of you, famous corps, 
and we think you should show the rustics that you are 
real flesh and not pictures on the palace gate wall.” 

“Oh, we are going to be marched out to show ! We shall 
appear at the village fairs, like the mock Roman guards 
in the miracle plays?” 

“They who have eyes to see may see you march out as 
far as Fleury, it is true, but there, with your detachment. 
Sir Aramis, you come to halt without more noise than 
on an expedition vital. You shun the village green, and 
you camp by Fleury Manor.” 

“Fleury, where his eminence reposes for his shattered 
health?” 

“Now that my lord duke as the royal counselor never 
gets repose and must not be ill, my lord, in the king’s 
service, is hale as you, or I ! Instead of reposing, by the 
same mark, he dispatches a pile of business where he is 
not interrupted by office seekers and other gnats — he can 
make a hole in the mass down there.” 

“Am I, a king’s musketeer, bound to preserve the min- 
ister’s peace, to intrude on this busy man and prevail on 


The Mission to Aramis. 


177 

a cardinal to quit his silly couch — I mean his hard leather 
seat — and drive to town?” 

Hear him !” laughed the Gascon captain. “I see that 
in your breviary or sword-sling pocket, you carry ^Some 
Suggestions on Changing the Government !’ You are too 
heady, my dear Aramis ! The King’s Guards do not drag 
ministers about, as was the wont in barbaric days, at their 
horses’ tails. No, we shield those whom the king esteems. 
In point of fact, are not the musketeers guarding him 
now, under my nominee, Cavoye ?” 

^‘Sooth ! they have been so cardinalized, these old com- 
rades of ours, that we should not recognize them if they 
returned to the mess room !” 

“The question is not do we recognize them, but do they 
still recognize the king as their master! I would they 
were all down at Fleury with the menaced man !” 

“Oh, the gale menaces I the gathering gale 1” 

“If the gale gathers, it does so to distribute!” 

“Ah, it comes to a blow ! as we say on our coast !” and 
Aramis lost his equanimity and rubbed his hands vul- 
garly. 

Treville seized his sleeve and drew him to the center of 
the room. Even in his own sanctum, if there were no 
trap in the ceiling or below their feet, they need not fear 
listeners. 

“Come to one blow, two, three,” continued the captain, 
“that weighs nothing. Do you know what a surprise party 
is?” 


The Mission to Aramis. 


178 

Aramis started at this irrelevance, but the military com- 
mander was brusque and disconnected. 

“I do; but the kind, in war or peace? In the former, 
the enemy is beguiled into believing that an attack is dis- 
tant, whereupon he is overrun by a select body which ** 

“Accurate ! but in peace 

“Well, we are primitive in Brittany, where I hail 
from.’’ 

Treville sat on a chair arm and assumed an enrapt mien 
like a great baby fond of folk-lore. 

“Go on! after you describe your Breton mode, I will, 
by your leave, comment on it.” 

Though not wanting encouragement, the young muske- 
teer proceeded in his smooth voice: 

“Among our heaths and hills, when a person becomes 
very much liked by his neighbors, they plan to become a 
special providence to him. By cunning inquiries, they 
learn just what his heart’s wishes are, and collect their 
realization in substantial form. They call on him at an 
unwonted hour, without any warning — which would take 
the flavor out of the windfall. They overwhelm him with 
their loads. In common gratitude, he can but beg them 
to make themselves at home. The fire is blown up and 
wood thrown on, torches are stuck in the clay wall, and 
the board is covered with the eatables fresh come. The 
cider is brought, in all the vessels. There is a feast 
memorable in the local records. That is our idea of a 
surprise party !” 

“A very good one ! It makes my mouth water ! That 


The Mission to Aramis. 


179 


is a kind to be greeted — in Brittany. But our ingenious 
Prince Gaston is ever on the alert to kill time so depres- 
sing on an objectless younger brother. He piously dis- 
missed from his boyish mind the idea of suffering the 
headache due to a crown’s pressure. He has improved 
upon that crude conception. Precisely as he rids the 
queen’s ward of her decidedly inconvenient clog, a hus- 
band, he imagines something novel in the way of a sur- 
prise party to his eminence.” 

“Oh, is Anjou the neighbor of Richelieu?” 

“Pro tempore! and when it comes to doing him a good 
turn ! His royal highness is staying at Montbazon’s hunt- 
ing lodge, and so becomes the minister’s neighbor ! Well, 
finding that his neighbor, under pretense of illness, is 
making himself veritably ill by toiling at the accumulation 
of state business. Prince Gaston’s well-known kindness 
prompts him to give him a surprise party amended Anjou 
fashion.” 

The more Treville, who rarely jested, used a merry 
tone, the more glum became his hearer. 

“The prince knows his duty, and it is the more hand- 
some for him to be neighborly as it is not current that 
he and the cardinal are friends.” 

“Calumny! That weed which springs up in princes’ 
steps, unhappily!” 

“So the royal neighbor intends to give a surprise party 
to his hierarchical one?” 

“Not a doubt of that, or the king would not have 


i8o The Mission to Aramis. 

called his musketeers from the — the dice box and wine 
bottle !” 

“Thank you, captain, for the compliment to my com- 
rades !” 

“Oh, you will see plenty of wine when you exchange 
quarters ! So this prince, who thinks your Breton parties 
are lacking politeness, is going to make his surprise so 
complete that he and his unannounced guests will leap 
in on the unnotified host by the windows and, eke, the 
chimney !” 

“I undervalue his eminence’s prudence if he has not 
had two or three stout iron bars set across the fireplace 
in the room where surprise parties use the flue for en- 
trance !” said Aramis. 

“You understand the prelacy better than I,” assented 
Treville, with simplicity. “If I were a cardinal, I should 
rely not on iron bars but on the sanctity of my office !” 

“Yes, he does, as a cardinal; but, as a statesman,” said 
the budding casuist, “who has a new neighbor, with a 
reputation for surprise parties, he ” 

He made the gesture of leveling a pistol. 

“You are right — he would! My dear Aramis, on sec- 
ond thoughts, gentlemen dressed to astonish the louts in 
their new hunting suits and boots would not come in at 
chimneys. There is no need, come to think of it ! Never 
is admission refused to gentlemen who knock at the door 
in broad daylight and show that their baskets contain not 
petards and grenades but pasties, fruit, wine and the like I” 

“Scarcely ! Our discipline is strict, thanks to our com- 


The Mission to Aramis. 


i8i 


mander being a martinet ; but,” went on Aramis, with sin- 
cerity, “if this kind of provender came to our barracks, 
and yet the bearers did not have word or countersign, I 
confess, they would be let through 

“Hence, one of these fine mornings, as it might be within 
three days of this, when the cardinal-duke’s porter opens 
the gates and sees a long train of butlers, cooks, fruit car- 
riers, flower gatherers, a procession which might be 

bound to Catullus’ table ” 

“A gentleman may quote Latin after his own idea, but, 
captain, there is a certain prejudice among us to say Lu- 
cullus when we mean the giver of a feast; for Catullus 
was a poet and, I doubt, from a little experience as a 
poet myself, that ever a poet gives a feast — unless his 
powerful friends gave him a surprise party !” 

Ignoring the correction, the other pursued: 

“The porter, seeing this appetizing pageant, will let them 
all in, to the pastry cook’s boy. Particularly, they will 
say, by their spokesman, that the Anjou house steward — 
that unctious Master Gouchard, from whom one would 
take a decoction of senna 'as if it were nectar — that their 
master the duke, on his passing after the hunt, would prob- 
ably find Fleury more convenient that the Montbazon lodge 
for shelter and a snack.” 

“This surprise seems blunted by this precursor !” 

“Yes, to spare the pontiff the inconvenience of having 
to entertain the prince and so numerous a cortege, Anjou 
took the liberty of sending his domestics ahead to prepare 
the banquet!” 


1 82 


The Mission to Aramis. 


“I shall always' maintain that the pure and simple Bre- 
ton surprise party is unexceptionable of its kind, but the 
Gaston- Anjou betterment is praiseworthy, too!” 

“So, you see ” 

“I see that I am to keep my detail on the move without 
bite or sup unless we ‘find’ ourselves on the road of that 
regiment of roast cooks, pastry cooks, and bottlers under 
Gen. Gouchard. Then we may break our fast with the 
comestibles prepared for the Prince of Anjou and his 
sporting guests, under the cardinal-minister’s restricted 
roof.” 

“Dear Herbaly, you will never be officer of the king’s 
bodyguard I” 

Seeing the hearer smile, a little contemptuously, he was 
sure his bolt had flown aside the mark. 

“You will never be prior or abbot, I mean !” 

This time Aramis laughed ; lowly, but it was still a laugh 
and had contempt in it, too. 

“Help us!” cried the captain, “is our barracks a hot- 
bed of the loftiest ambition? Not that I deplore that, for 
the best soldiers for activity are the aspiring. No,” he 
resumed, solemnly, “no eating and drinking ! On the con- 
trary, your mission is^ to spoil the feast — in one sense.” 

“That will be out of character with the musketeers — 
they fight well who eat well! If that is not in ‘Caesar’s 
Commentaries,’ it ought to be !” 

“No, you are not to waylay the purveyors of the ban- 
quet. But precede them in their march on Fleury. In- 
stal your men in the outbuildings and announce yourself 


The Mission to Aramis. 


183 

to the cardinal’s steward as sent to his eminence by me, 
from his majesty. Tell him that the three princes design 
to make him their hostage, and let him act as his wit di- 
rects ! I do not wash my hands of it, for I believe that 
as prince of the church he will forestall any bloodshed — 
at Fleury and on that day, at least!” 

‘T am to inform his eminence of the scheme and place 
my troops at his orders ? But my men in the outhouses will 
chafe, if they snuff the smell of the beef and fowl and 
wine up their nostrils !” 

“Bah ! if the cardinal is above the fleshpots, he is as a 
host sure to regale your soldiers out of his own cellars! 
Besides, when you shall have cut in before the prince’s 
steward, all the savor of the surprise party will have fled. 
The wine will lose its sparkle — Anjou wine once opened, 
palls ! I do not believe one of the hunting party, on see- 
ing the musketeers appear at all doorways surrounding 
the manor, and themselves, incidentally, will quarrel over 
a capon or a flask !” 

“If they quarrel, my men fasting and the hunters sharp- 
set capons will be limbed and bottles cracked !” 

“Your mission, Aramis, is achieved when you warn the 
wise and prudent minister !” 

“Captain, I am delighted to be of service to the king, 
his chief military officer, and his eminence, potentate of 
the church in whose bosom I trust to rest !” 

He was going to cross himself but remembering where 
he was he tapped his sword hilt significantly and departed. 

“Oh, let me see our king of the midgets ” 


184 


The Mission to Aramis. 


“Eh?” 

“Porthos!” 

would rather have Porthos for my boon companion 
when I retire, than Aramis for my chaplain ! I could not 
make him that since he has no money and the chaplaincy 
of the guards is worth some thousands. I should like to 
see him and the cardinal commune! oh, those two of the 
missal and chasuble will understand in a twinkling!^’ 


CHAPTER XVL 

IN WHICH ARE DETAILED THE IMPORTANT INSTRUC- 
TIONS DELEGATED ON FORTH OS. 

There was not one word about politics in the com- 
mander s address to his worthy Porthos. On the opposite, 
he was tersely informed that shortly after he and his 
squ|d should arrive at Fleury, a number of porters would 
also reach that point, with provisions. It is true that the 
porters, and even their superior, might allege that they 
were bringing them for a hunters’ feast, but, in war, the 
first comers had the pick, and it was inculcated upon the 
Knight of the Vallon that for a circuit of a mile around 
Fleury Manor, it was “state of war” as far as Porthos’ 
troops was concerned. 

“We are to live on the country,” interpreted the muske- 
teer, showing, in an amiable grin, teeth in a mouth fit for 
an ogre. 

“To the last dish ! My dear Vallon, with you half a 
word goes as a whole volume to these oscillating soldiers 
who spend half their time between the brewery and the 
Ready Rhymer. I see that you see that cutting off an 
enemy’s supply is as important a stroke as seizing his 
castle. Devour ! If I spy a crumb on your mustache when 
you return. I’ll cashier you and send all your misled com- 
panions into a disciplinary regiment on the German fron- 
tier! by the word of a Troisvilles !” 


1 86 Important Instructions. 

When excited, Treville broadened his name. 

“Captain,'^ said Porthos, patting his belt buckle uncon- 
sciously, like those Epigastricans who believe the seat of 
intelligence is in the mid-regions, “the more perfectly to 
obey your instructions, I shall keep my men without a 
nip or drop up to Fleury.” 

“Come, come,’' felicitated the military arm of the realm, 
when alone, “Athos will preserve the instigators from mis- 
chance; Aramis will subtly warn his eminence, and 
Porthos will eat up the feast, so that the Gastonets will be 
left with a flat taste alone in their dry mouths !” 

Almost as soon as born, the rumor that there was to be 
hostilities with our neighbor of Spain was authoritatively 
hushed up ; if a tolerably large force of the musketeers left 
the Louvre, it was merely a number of invalided going off 
on “furlough” to imbibe their native waters and air. 

To the unimpressionable, the three squads, under the 
musketeers designated, were very hale looking for men on 
“sick leave.” 

But as, simultaneously with the troopers quitting town, 
a number of nobles identified with the Anjou and Ven- 
dome factions, also left by one gate or another, the move- 
ments distracted the curious. 

Leaving town variously, as well as Capt. Guitauts’ 
contingent escorting the queen’s own messenger, D’Artag- 
nan, gladly bearing the invitation to the widow of Lord 
Sanforain, they did not come within calling distance after 
losing sight of the steeples. 

On entering Normandy, they met, at the Inn of the 


Important Instructions. 187 

Three Pines, where the four commanders conferred on 
the next steps. Their men, overflowing the street of the 
village, debated on their errand, real and fictitious. 

Some averred that they were going to arrest the prime 
minister, fallen into disgrace, and whose withdrawal was 
to prevent a scandal in the capital. If forewarned, this 
talk of a hunting meet might cover a rallying of his 
friends to protect his retreat, in which case there would 
be a collision with them, since the musketeers were bound 
to ride at and over anybody. 

But all the time, like good horsemen, they saw to their 
equipment. There might be chase. 

From experience, those under Athos knew that he 
never mingled in sham and frivolous actions ; those under 
Aramis knew that he was sagely brave and took good 
care of his skin. As for Porthos, since like captain, so 
his men, they had ample faith that if there were blows 
they would not be received on an empty stomach, unless 
exceptionably. 

The Queen's Guards rode on without any remarks. It 
was a change from palace guard mounting and they were 
a little tired of the mob reviling them for being watch upon 
‘‘the Spanish lady." As for the messenger, he felt that 
letter burning on his heart as though the ink were vitriol. 

“Never was the sun more bright and never the grass 
more green !" he said, trying to cajole himself that he did 
not care an ounce of thistledown for going to see the relict 
of Baron Sansforain again. 

The next conjunction should be by Fleury. 


1 88 


Important Instructions. 


The last stage was made with such measures as became 
venturing in a hostile land. The two parties separated be- 
fore passing Monthereux, where Guitaut went through. 
If he expected a placid entry he was mistaken. The lit- 
tle burg was thronged; the squires and their dames and 
daughters had come in their best to see the almost royal 
hunting party and greet the prince royal. They hailed the 
troop under an idea that the queen was sending a deputa- 
tion to greet Anjou, but Guitaut, already a reserved man, 
shook his head and pushed his horse through the press, 
without letting a bunch of flowers be thrust upon him or 
a ribbon be tied to his horse’s saddle horn. 

He only waited to secure a guide ere hastening on to 
the Visitation Sisters’ convent. 

The musketeers had made the circuit of the hamlet. 
Porthos rode right on to Fleury Manor, where he placed 
his men in the outhouses and drew a cordon towards 
Montheureux so that the rustics could not annoy the car- 
dinal. There Porthos and his men, champing their mus- 
taches, for he had not given them a bait, awaited the 
coming of the “officers of the mouth.” 

Athos guarded the approaches and held some men in 
reserve to be sent to any menaced point. 

Aramis led his men into the courtyard, after getting 
passage by an occult anl ecclesiastical password, and, dis- 
mounting quietly, rapped as tenderly at the main wicket 
as though he were the humblest of begging friars. 

On hearing that this errand concerned his eminence 
personally, besides being on behalf of the king, the door- 


Important Instructions. 


189 

ward dropped his pride and undid one door. But on 
seeing that the mild speaker was armed and in military 
uniform, with a horse caparisoned for battle at his rear, 
he would have shut him out. 

The cavalier simply set his boot against the door and 
stood fixedly. 

Looking past him, as he was not tall like himself, the 
porter was horrified to see horsemen invading the yard. 

“Oh, we are all king’s men and his eminence’s serv- 
ants,” explained Aramis, serenely, “and I am to speak with 
your lord. Meanwhile, though my troopers could bivouac 
in the yard, I recommend, to make our stay pleasant, that 
you should have the horses put in the stables while the 
men not guarding them should be stowed in the pantries.” 

“We have accommodated the king’s retinue!” said the 
porter, proudly. 

“Accompany my draft, and as the draft of yours in this 
passage is likely to give me a cold in the head, which will 
not mollify the voice of a royal messenger, pray acquaint 
the duke’s usher that I may deliver my advices. Order 
of the king!” 

“But his eminence is asleep!” said the man. 

“Nonsense ! his eminence has not come here to sleep !’* 

“I should say that his secretaries are asleep!” 

“I know them, and their habits ; if Count Chavigny and 
Master Qieret sleep, then Desmarets is awake ! He can no 
more find sleep here than in restless Paris. Announce me 
to him!” 

“Captain of the musketeers?” 


190 Important Instructions. 

“Not at all ! Announce me as the Abbe Herblay !’’ 

The man shook with a maze at a soldier presenting 
himself as a clerk — yet he had seen many religious go-be- 
tweens in odd garbs. 

“Yes, in this house an abbe would pass where a mili- 
tary officer might not 

“You are right, sir ! Ah, to think that we came here 
for tranquillity !” And calling a servant to transmit the 
orders for the company and setting his deputy to his post, 
he took the caller up to the cabinet and clerks’ offices. 

Not only was the unsleeping Desmarets awake, but his 
master was with him, having only napped while at this 
place of repose. 

His attention had been called to the noise in the yard, 
but he had not moved a brow or winked a lid. 

The secretary knew Herblay the more as they had been 
in the same seminary, but he would have wished to see 
him in another dress. 

But on the first word that he came to act out royal busi- 
ness of no bad omen, Richelieu, who overheard, dismissed 
his writer, with a copyist in the corner, sharing a biscuit 
with a kitten, and the two left the visitor with the min- 
ister. 

The cardinal and the priest in apprenticeship knew their 
class with the nude language of the convent, where speech 
being forbidden, conversation is carried on dumbly. 

If Aramis was in military apparel, the minister was in 
the loose and easy wrap of a literary man ; he had a volu- 
minous dressing gown which a little bore out the char- 


Important Instructions. 191 

acter of his being an invalid, for it was wadded, only the 
waistcord was a rosary with the cross and a bauble or 
two. He also wore a skullcap, but it was such as a li- 
brarian dons rather than to hide the tonsure. As he wore 
mustache and royal, like most prelates of the age, noth- 
ing much betrayed his profession. 

Richelieu was not yet published as the man of genius 
and the inflexible minister afterwards manifest, but there 
are diviners who, seeing a ship’s wake, can tell whither 
it is bound! 

At a glance at the emissary, the duke had perceived 
that nothing like a decree lurked in this message. To ar- 
rest him, though only at the outset of his fortune, not a 
simple musketeer would have been chosen; their captain 
would have presented himself in person, it being the 
prerogative of the bodyguard commander to make impor- 
tant state arrests. 

He sat down and motioned that the young man was to 
speak. 

“My lord,” said he, so reverent as to be almost devout, 
“a horrid design against your eminence has driven me 
here.” 

Resting his pointed chin on his lean hand, the minister 
listened to the whole revelation of the stupendous and 
demoniacal plot, Aramis filling up gaps in the too con- 
cise relation of Treville from his deep knowledge of the 
persons and times involved. Not a feature expressed 
other emotion than the concentrated attention he gave to 
supreme subjects, if another breast than his own had been 


192 Important Instructions. 

doomed to the dagger, he could not have evinced more 
calm. 

‘This is a great man!” thought the musketeer; “only 
the chiefs of state have this peculiar courage to brave such 
menaces.” 

As one relishes a blood-curdling ghost story, if well 
told, Richlieu seemed to like this narration, unfolded by 
Aramis with all the spirit of that period, rich in romantic 
adventures, fabulous episodes and the complicated in- 
trigues of which we try to write faithfully. Almost all 
other report bringers to his study, spoke briefly and 
aridly. 

He appeared to thank the elegant discourser with his 
nod at the end. 

“In sum,” said the soldier, “as it came to the king’s 
ear and as Capt. Treville vouches for it, you are to be 
done to death!” 

“Again ?” Then as the kitten had strayed off out of the 
wastepaper box and come to smell the grease on the 
musketeer’s boots, the cardinal simply stooped, offering 
his rounded back to the messenger’s sword had he been 
a traitor, and picked up the little beast which he fondled. 

“It is called Friquet,” said he, apologetically, as if his 
visitor had come to debate on natural history, “because 
it eats those little sparrows so known. The Duke of An- 
jou, then, is to direct the hunt over to Fleury?” he 
summed up. “He will claim hospitality. I am to house 
him and in the night they are to murder their host?” 

“Murder may be the word! but they may quail and it 


Important Instructions. 193 

would be a forced crossing of the border !” said the en- 
voy, deprecating. 

“So the king merely sends me extra guards and leaves 
me then with no other orders?'’ 

“My captain said nothing more.” 

The minister knew that the king was a master of dis- 
simulation, that “added virtue of kings,” but he had 
pierced it; he was sure that out of relief, as a schoolboy 
hears his schoolmaster is dismissed, Louis would rejoice 
as much as Gaston, but not so openly. 

Then why save him? 

“Are you sure sir,” he resumed, “that as a man of war- 
fare, your captain did not add private instructions to 
those you openly delivered ?” 

The envoy reflected; the atmosphere of his study in- 
clined one to think. Half the time, when one puts words 
into his principal’s mouth, if they are timely and fruitful, 
they are never disowned ; only the subordinate must know 
how his superior would have spoken. 

The great enfevered eyes were fastened on him. 

“My good lord,” replied he, quickly, “the captain does 
not discourse at length or at random. We about him 
know his ways. His Spartan terseness is eloquent to his 
corporals. I have the honor, then, to offer my special 
troop, while two others are guarding the roads and the 
mansion and appurtenances. My captain,” he went on, 
freely, as he saw the hearer believed Treville capable of 
such manliness to even a foe, “he proposes such a stroke 
as must have occurred to your eminence on learning that 


194 Important Instructions. 

an army is at his back, for the musketeers are each ten 
men 

So saying, he set his hand on his hip with that touch 
of the braggart not ill-becoming the assertive audacity of 
his company. 

“I must own nothing has occurred to me, sir? The 
kindness of his majesty and the obligation his captain puts 
me under — they overpower me !” 

He stopped to stroke the cat and to hide his emotion. 

Aramis believed in his emotion as in the cat’s ; the 
claws were there all the time under the velvet. Aramis 
dared not move a muscle; he would not have smiled to 
himself if tears had dropped on the table — he was an 
adept, who disbelieved in sincerity. 

“So the captain thinks that in my place, but he re- 
taining his violent modes of war ” suggested the pre- 

mier. 

“Oh, no, no ! In your eminency’s place he would be 
your eminence and would have recourse to one of those 
bold strokes distinguishing your diplomacy, as well as it 
does a soldier. The cunning do not foresee bold strokes 
and they will not be ready for it.” 

“Ah, but a bold stroke in that game of chess called diplo- 
macy may win, but at what a sacrifice of men !” 

“Bah! we are in our coats to be sacrificed if the state 
gains I” rejoined the musketeer, very soldier-like. “The 
plot is plain : the gentlemen of the hunt will converge to- 
wards this house from all points as wild beasts seek wa- 
ter course after the chase. When the prince ” 


Important Instructions. 195 

“What prince 

“Oh, one of the princes !” replied the young man, with 
a wave of the hand, as much as to say: “You have your 
choice !” “When the prince in the rear, not the van, ar- 
rives he will give the signal; still in the rear, when all 
are around him, he will beg admission.’’ 

“He, or they, will be in number?” 

“Yes, here, at your gate; but at Montheureux, after all 
the hunting party are out and about, he would be alone.” 

“Oh ! on the eve of such an atrocity, he would be 
alone ?” 

“Why, he knows not whom to trust now, for some little 
mishaps in Paris to his cronies reduces their ranks. I beg 
to answer for it that if your eminence were to honor my 
little command, and go straight in their midst to Montheu- 
reux, in the dawn, we should be able to cope with any 
force he can raise at the nonce !” 

“Beshrew me, but I thought your captain counseled 
another move !” 

There was a pause, Aramis dying to know what he 
ought to have put forward as Treville’s plan. 

“Frankness for frankness, I thought that it would be 
more warlike to abide the coming, and if anyone at the 
head — or the rear — received a shot in the rush, why, I 
would say high mass over his corpse though he were a 
prince of the blood !” 

“I must confess,” said Aramis, with the smile of a 
man thrice his age, “this occurred to me as a musketeer; 


196 Important Instructions. 

but, as a wandering sheep who means to return into the 
fold, I dared not anticipate your eminence.’’ 

It was evident that Richelieu looked around for his 
secretary to write down the name of this prolific wit, who 
might be useful some day of another emergency. 

“What am I to do with the captive, if I thus confront 
him?” he demanded, abruptly. 

“Oh, that is plain,” responded the young man, pleased 
at this condescension, fostering his vein. “You will just 
thank his highness for sending on his domestics, cooks 
and butlers, to prepare the enormous feast at your resi- 
dence ; but as such hilarity and gluttony ill suit the dwell- 
ing of a church dignitary and a statesman foremost, you 
have the honor not merely to give up your best room to his 
highness but the entire house! Let the merrymakers, 
then, make merry ! In a word, you place Fleury at his dis- 
position, and you take yourself to Paris, having quite re- 
covered, and being eager to thank the king for his inter- 
est in his first minister — as to health and safety!” 

“Neat !” said Richelieu, three times, with more admira- 
tion each time. “Ah, Friquet,” said he to his kitten, as if 
he thought himself alone but for this confidant, which cer- 
tainly would not repeat his words to his enemies, “we 
missed something when Capt. Cavoye came with his 
musketeers to guard us, and in the muster there was not 
the Knight of Herblay.” 

The owner of this title bowed to the ground. 

“But I think Desmarets called you the Abbe Herblay ?” 

“I was reading for orders, as my family is of the bishop 


Important Instructions. 197 

of Rennes’, when a little worldly matter not unconnected 
with using a sword, a deuced weapon for one in a long 
robe, compelled your servant to ” 

“As I have had an accountant study up the losses by 

dueling, perhaps ” and Richelieu rose as if to take a 

book from a shelf. 

“Nay, your eminence, I am too infinitesimal to be in 
your register. A half-pay officer undertook to cane me for 
coming in between him and a fair worshiper. In our 
scuffle, very indecorous for the holy water brush, he re- 
ceived a splash in the eye! He flourished his cane — very 
gross in a holy edifice — and I opposed his cane with the 

beadle’s staff! Hence, a challenger, and my man ” 

Aramis covered his eyes with a fine, foppish, cambric 
handkerchief and sobbed as if his heart would break at 
this avowal. 

Richelieu put the cat on the table, where it spied a sheet 
of clean paper and incontinently lay down upon it, and 
opening a book with clasps, wrote a line or two. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


AT THE OLD STONE CROSS. 

“But whiles he thought to steal the single ten. 

The king was slyly fingered from the deck!” 

— Henry VI. 

If Aramis had been a traitor, this might be his death 
warrant; luckily he meant this man as well as if he had 
chosen him for his patron. 

As if the statesman suspected his line of thought, he 
abruptly asked: 

“If this proposed escort is accepted, under whose or- 
ders do they march?” 

“I thought I said, by your eminence’s to an inch 1” was 
the steady reply, while the eyes of neither ceased re- 
garding; the cardinal held out his hand to be kissed and 
Aramis kissed the blessed ring after the ecclesiastical 
method and not as a courtier. 

“I see that your rising way is through the aisle and 
not over the church square !” observed the prelate, pant- 
ing a little at having found a road out of the plight. “Get 
your men in the saddle. I shall go as a horseman. I 
ought to attend the prince’s rising!” 

“These men who turn night into day and hospitality 
into an ambuscade do not go to bed at all! Be in time, 
my lord!” 

Another than the minister might have suspected that 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


199 


this was a ruse to conduct him into a place of seclusion 
without scandal, and with the pleasant zest of deceiving so 
artful a man. This escort by obeying their comrade might 
follow his guidance all the time. 

But, dismissing his illness as well as any such doubts, 
the master of Fleury left in the midst of the royal muske- 
teers as if they were his own and headed by Cavoye. He 
could see his servants busy in the grounds, and an eye or 
two up at the stable windows not familiar. Under the 
hedge, he spied a plume or two, scarlet like a poppy in 
the holly. And on the cross roads, his sword drawn and 
laid across the saddle bow, his musketoon by his flank, 
a musketeer outpost sat like a statue, in the morning haze, 
only letting them pass on Aramis giving him a signal. 

For his good or harm, Fleury was occupied by the king’s 
men. 

At the old stone cross, having left Porthos’ force behind, 
they found Athos posted. His men were on both sides of 
the green fence. Their commander came to the barrier 
and saluted his younger comrade as if he saw nobody 
else. 

‘T am lieutenant now,” said the young man. “Under 
his eminence’s orders we are escorting this gentleman to 
Montheureux.” 

“Ah,” returned the Count of La Fere with his sad 
smile ; “how a little time reverses things : to be the hunted 
and become a hunter !” 

“Yes; but I am afraid that we shall uselessly hunt for 
a breakfast there!” 


200 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


“Such a force would take my appetite away if I were 
the receiver there !’’ 

“I shall breakfast on the way to town, if I am met with 
the empty trencher! Send a vidette if you hear nothing 
of me!” 

“Count on me ! but I want to know more how your new 
commander fares than you!” 

Saluted, all the line, the party passed on. 

“While you are a musketeer with the air of a choir 
boy!” said the cardinal, amusedly, “there is one with a 
sovereign prince's.” 

“Athos ! Yes, I believe he is sovereign lord in his own 
county; but a disappointment in love turned him loose; 
he took the uniform, as a soldier is not obliged to wed 
every woman who turns her head to look at him and 
turns his head!” 

“Were you, too, disappointed by the worshiper who pre- 
ferred you to the half-pay officer to dispense her holy 
water ?” 

Aramis laughed freely, as the birds in the hedge, and 
his companion inhaled the sunny air as if he came out of a 
dungeon. 

“I ? — I who have not yet begun to love !” 

“Oh, a heart is never untenanted — I shall not name any- 
one, but I know of one who had ambition in his heart, first 
of all!” 

The young soldier shifted in his seat as if he were 
galled; no man liked less to be read. 

They met on the road but the peasants. The hunt was 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


201 


becoming general ; though forbidden usually, these carried 
obsolete firearms with stick rests; they might be recruits 
going to muster. 

“It is more than a battue !” remarked the church prince. 
“It is a long step between those weapons and your finished 
ones. Poor dullards, they are capable of mistaking your 
plume for a fox’s brush !” 

“Yes, my lord, but while the fox cannot reply in kind, 
my friends can!” 

It was seven in the morning when they reached the 
hunting lodge. 

Yet the drawbridge was down, and the portcullis raised 
out of sight. Many servants were about the yards as if 
expecting a busy day. By their neighing, the horses were 
considerable in number and new to their place in the 
stables. The clothes on the men were brushed and decked 
with ribbons and flowers. Many were furbishing weapons 
as if they might need more than butcher knives for the 
game. 

But Richelieu, having made sure that the musketeers 
were close behind, rode straight in at the portals, without 
letting the scene diminish the glow on his cheeks from 
the morning air. Aramis threw himself to the ground to 
hold his stirrup, and not wait for the dumfounded por- 
ter. The latter almost recognized the cardinal, but this 
plain attire dumfounded him. The minister alighted 
with the grace he possessed, then, as the premier might 
be supposed to come direct from the king, none dared 
even question if he were to be admitted. 


202 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


All the doors flew open, indeed, and accompanied by 
Aramis, the potentate passed, the ushers and lackeys, 
hastily drawing back. At the sleeping place of the Duke 
of Anjou alone the gentlemen at the post would not give 
way. 

“His highness is no more than risen,’’ explained the 
guards’ captain. “He will try on a new hunting suit from 
his own tailors for the grand hunt.” 

“My dear marquis,” said Richelieu, taking him by the 
gorget much as one picks up an oyster shell to see if a 
pearl is clinging underneath, “pray have the king’s first 
minister announced!” 

With that he pushed by Lord Laigues, and, as the ush- 
ers thought the latter had spoken in that high voice, they 
repeated : 

“His eminence, the cardinal-duke!” 

The gentleman at the inmost door mechanically re- 
peated it, but already the visitor was at his elbow, and 
eluding his attempt to bar the opening door with his wand 
of office, entered the bedroom. 

Prince Gaston was sitting by the bedside, with one 
stocking on, and with his nightdress ready to slip off ; the 
officers holding his day apparel at the wood fire to air it, 
while he contemplated, with a fop’s idolatry, a hunting 
costume set on a dummy frame at a little distance in the 
window light. 

The surprised man looked, black without his cosmetic 
and powder, a picture of dismay. His countenance pro- 
claimed in every moist pore that the news from town was 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


203 


true to a letter. He could not have been more strongly 
convinced, this intruder, if the other two princes were be- 
hind the curtains. 

“Mercy!” ejaculated the young duke, while the gentle- 
men held the linen with shaking hands. “You look angry, 
to me!” 

“Angry with you ? Oh, my dear lord, fie !” was the re- 
ply. “Yet have I not grounds to be angry with you !” 

Gaston was easy to terrify, and he looked around for 
support. All he saw prominent was another unexpected 
guest : Aramis, in his cassock with the royal emblem dis- 
played, filled up the doorway, having given Capt. Laigues, 
marquis though he was, a look petrifying him. The fact 
is the marquis had looked out of window and saw the 
musketeers towering over the throng on their black horses. 
He believed that there would be wholesale arresting. 

“How can that be?” stammered Anjou, completely be- 
wildered. 

“Because you would not do my household the honor 
to command the hunting breakfast ! You even send your 
own officers of the kitchen. So that my cook will commit 
suicide and his assistants transfix themselves on their long 
spit! All of which indicates that your royal highness 
wished to be fully at home under my roof. Hence, I have 
vacated Fleury, lock, stock and barrels, ha! ha! and the 
cellar is a good one with its stock; if the kitchen is be- 
neath your epicurean friends ! I abandon Fleury, I repeat, 
for you to dispose of it utterly at your whim!” 

Anjou gasped with amaze. 


204 At the Old Stone Cross. 

He felt like the player hit by his own ball between the 
eyes. 

“I see by your eyes watering/’ resumed the cardinal, 
with a fatherly tone, “you are catching cold, while I am 
explaining. Allow me to prove that in all ways I am your 
lordship’s very humble servant!” 

So saying, without an atom of the illimitable pride at- 
tributed to him, the king’s chief adviser took the shirt 
from the valet’s hands, who nearly let it fall, to scorch 
in the fire; and, almost by force, for a second gentleman 
of the dressing department tried to intercept, he scarcely 
waited for the nightrobe to be removed before he muf- 
fled the royal head in the cambric. The prince was as 
white and cold as marble. If he had been strangled in 
those holy hands at that moment, when a prince is help- 
less as poor mortality, he would have died believing he 
was getting his deserts at last. Richelieu made a pro- 
found bow, and, retiring, while still in the eaves, reached 
the door, where poor Capt. Laigues and Aramis were ex- 
changing a glance which meant they were deadly foes 
hereafter. 

Turning in the anteroom, he shouted, in the voice of 
one who wished to emphasize his great inability — through 
his abominable weak health, to participate in the sport of 
the day — saying nothing of his religious office: 

“A delightful pastime, my lord! only, beware of the 
red boars! The clowns aver that the monster of fable 
roams the moor and that is ugly game to run up against !” 

Gaston foamed at the mouth like going into an epileptic 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


205 


fit; he rolled himself up in the bedclothes as if he was a 
boy again and had seen the bugbear of the nursery. But 
he tore the coverlet with his teeth and swore so that the 
linen almost smoked through his mufflings, though, he 
heard the gallop of horses and guessed that his prey had 
fairly escaped. 

“Marquis, you, a captain! Captain of my guards!’’ 
shrieked he, in his deshabille. “Why did you not cut him 
down when he was within your reach ?’’ 

“Cut down a priest ? But your highness did not see what 
I saw out of that window ! He came, the coward, with a 
company of the musketeers ! I always said that that corps 
furnished the bullies who slew our poor Louvigny and 
disabled Rieux and a lot more!” 

“Ah, the game is up !” moaned Gaston, pacing the room 
without accepting any article of dress, his attendants fol- 
lowing him. “Here,” and he caught up the now-offensive 
dummy in the hunting costume in his arms and threw it 
out of the window. “Let the baffled dogs worry that!” 
And he flung himself down on the bed, vociferating 
threats against king, cardinal and all the musketeers from 
the captain to the groom who dusted their coats. 

“Call the doctor,” said Laigues. “It is clear that his 
highness is indisposed to go hunting!” 

Dr. Besangon was not only the medical adviser but a 
composer of comic songs. He saw a magnificeat subject 
here, but he could not indulge in his vein. He prescribed 
absolute rest. To vex the patient to whom rest was or- 
dered, news trickled in during the day, irritating in evgry 


2 o 6 At the Old Stone Cross. 

drop. Not informed of the mishap detaining their chief, 
the hunting men had strayed over to Fleury, scenting the 
banquet. But Porthos and his detachment had fallen with 
complete circumvallation on the train of cooks and cook- 
ery and gathered in every bottle and pie dish. The envi- 
rons of the manor resembled Strasburg after being sacked 
and the glory of that city, the fat-liver pie, gorged by the 
pillagers. Broken glass and dented platters lay around 
like the shards of devastated Jerusalem. 

Moreover, as the country gentlemen and the nobles 
from town had taken in huff the challenges of Athos’ pick- 
ets along the road, clashes had occurred, and the descend- 
ants of the Normans were obliged to confess that the 
tricks of fence in the musketeers’ barracks surpassed their 
devices. 

No prisoners were made. Porthos’ men were slow and 
languid as a glutted boa-constrictor, and they lingered to 
be the rear guard. Athos was not alarmed about them, as 
they were men of bulk like their leader ; and the Gastonets, 
not liking to disturb such heroes of the table at digestion, 
did not, like the yeomen of “Rabelais,” try to “teach them 
to eat cakes.” 

Hastening, Athos caught up with Aramis. He, no 
doubt, could give a good guess as to the identity of the 
strange cavalier under a horse cloak and with a flap hat, 
but he saluted him as a gentleman of his friend’s acquaint- 
ance enjoying this formidable company to town. 

To baffle spies, for pursuit was not apprehended, the 
two corps parted to cross the Seine variously. 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


207 


Aramis had to pass under the brow of Magdaleon Hill 
— a mound of cylindrical form, very conspicuous. It was 
one of the castles which Richelieu demolished, but the 
religious sisterhood, obtaining the land, had had the stones 
used again for their convent. 

'‘The Broken Heart’s Sanctuary!” said Aramis, to 
whom it was a new scene. Having the religious houses 
under his charge, the cardinal was at no loss to define this 
establishment and he graciously did so. 

In the reign of Henry IV., a beauty rivaled with the 
selected enchantresses of Queen Marie, the “flying squad- 
ron,” one Daisiere, called countess without there being a 
count, “experienced grace,” after the assassination of the 
king. She turned as stern as she had been facile and as 
bigoted as uncontrolled. She corresponded with faded 
lusters of the court and founded a hermitage for those 
palled with fashion and frivolity. This asylum contained 
blighted dames of her rank, if not all of her exceptionable 
charms. 

The cardinal contemplated this edifice, gray without 
and the interior white with lime, as a peep allowed to be 
seen. He had been informed that this refuge was one 
also for old hates and spites opposed to his ideas of 
ameliorations and reform. 

He promised himself that he would investigate. 

But as he was going to move on, all the corps were 
astonished to see the way blocked by a mounted man. Like 
them, armed in full, he held up a musket in a very earnest 


208 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


mode and occupied the gorge by which the progress was 
made, under command of the ex-castle, become abbey. 

Aramis pushed forward to shield his companion, and to 
him the horseman cried : 

'‘Halt there! None go! Denounce yourself!’^ 

“King’s men ! Denounce yourself — or ” 

The grooms leveled their own firearms. The man was 
outnumbered, generously, but he remained motionless, 
only he called out in surprise : 

“Soul of my body, it is M. Aramis, I do believe !” 

“Wonder on wonder! it is my friend’s man — M. D’Ar- 
tagnan’s!” exclaimed the musketeer, with as much sur- 
prise. 

On this, the man pinched his gun match to quench it 
and hung his gun on the hooks. His broad but astute 
features beamed with a smile. 

“How glad master will be to see you, sir ! and in force, 
too! for I believe that a half-dozen soldiers will come in 
good stead !” 

Aramis stared, but in the gloom nothing to bear out 
this remark was visible. 

“Your master here? What business has he here — here? 
Has he a broken heart ?” 

N 

“It is no joke, sir ; it looks like broken heads !” and 
Planchet was but part jocular. 

“What a tiresome droll you are! Where is he?” 

“Over there, at the nunnery gate; protected, like the 
rest of us, by a counterscarp ! But haste, he will be more 
overjoyed to see you than ever!” 


At the Old Stone Cross. 


209 


‘‘I do not understand this meeting,” observed Aramis, 
to the cardinal, for he knew nothing of the queen’s mis- 
sion ; “but it is a dear friend across the way. May I ascer- 
tain how he comes here to be held in check by a convent 
door?” 

“Go! Little checks irritate one!” 

The musketeer outstripped the servant and was speedily 
at a ruined bastion, beyond which ran a paved way, nar- 
row but straight, leading under a deep archway, all re- 
mains of the ancient fortalice. 

He recognized D’Artagnan in the soldier standing there, 
and leaning down, he unfolded his arms to embrace him. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


IN WHICH d'ARTAGNAN IS MET WITH FIRE AND WATER. 

Acting Capt. Guitaut did not like the look of the coun- 
try, what with the peasants having a holiday and taking 
up arms as if ready to be called in to the aid of the 
hunting party. So, on spying at last the religious mansion 
pointed out as the object of their royal mail service, he 
relegated D’Artagnan to go on and deliver his letter while 
he reconnoitered. But to his amaze, his young officer re- 
turned almost immediately. 

He looked chopfallen. With his growing inclination to 
be wary, listen to reason and curb his vehemence, he al- 
lowed that fancy of his to take the bit and race on. He 
had that vainglorious feeling that as things turned out, 
he was favorite of fortune. 

Such men, when, in the steady gale and on a smooth 
sea, they are checked by the wind shifting or falling dead 
calm, or they strike a reef, regard the deterrence as per- 
sonal slight. 

The porter of the Visitation Convent, his rest broken 
by the peasants’ halloaing and the hunting horn blasts, re- 
ceived him with ill humor. He claimed that to demand a 
lay sister at their house was a practical joke of the friends 
of the profligate Duke of Anjou, and on the young soldier 
displaying the queen’s letter, mocked at the seal as a 
Spanish device and shoved a gun into his face through the 


Met With Fire and Water. 


211 


little trap in the gate door, giving him five minutes to get 
out of range or be blown to pieces, he and his letter. 

The courier returned to his superior, believing he would 
resent this insult to his beloved mistress. 

But, in the meanwhile, the captain’s picket had taken in 
hand a skulker who, thinking this party was upon his 
tracks, confessed without any pressure that he had been 
one of a body to carry, on a hand barrow, a lady from 
the convent to another such house at Magdaleon Hill. 

He was so enthusiastic about the beauty, of the kind of 
prisoner, that the young man had no doubt that the trans- 
fer was part and parcel of the Duke of Anjou’s deter- 
mination to keep this important witness about the Sans- 
forain murder under his own knowledge only. 

“You are right,” said Guitaut. “Not that the Sans- 
forains, unknown at court, are bestirring themselves for 
revenge, but that luckless Pontgibaut has an avenger in 
the Count of Ludes, strongly supported, who has dared to 
accuse Chalais of not only that slaying, fair or not, but 
as well of participation in the outrage under the palace!” 

“All this time,” remarked the guardsman, “I am hold- 
ing this letter!” 

“Well, take five men and a brigadier, along with this 
rogue, and find this convent of baked tarts ” 

“Sisters of the Sacred Broken Hearts, please you, cap- 
tain!” faltered the peasant, who saw that he was to lose 
the day’s sport. 

“Show this, my ensign, the right road or — pistol at his 
ear all the way, ensign !” said Guitaut. “I will follow 


212 


Met With Fire and Water. 


you and join at Annelles, but I must scout ! The whole 
country is in a ferment and those musketeers, fresh from 
town, may fall into a pitfall such as these rustics contrive !” 

As the peasant wanted to finish with his enforced task, 
he conducted the squad by little known paths, and they 
were soon at the same convent which had aroused Car- 
dinal Richelieu’s curiosity, some hours later. 

This edifice was stronger than the Visitation, but it 
had a porter, as meek and affable as the other had been 
grulf and demonstrative of bellicose means. 

But the young soldier’s intimacy with Parisian life was 
of no avail in judging convent inhabitants. While mild 
and agreeable, the porter was as obdurate about admitting 
the bearer of the queen’s warrant for the delivery of the 
fair widow transported here, as the other about admitting 
he had ever known of such a ward. 

It is difficult for a swordsman to argue by club law 
with a man behind oak and iron, and all the latter would 
yield in was to carry the letter to the lady superior. 

But D’Artagnan was not so often in the habit of carry- 
ing a royal writing to easily let it be free of his hand, and 
he stated that it and the carrier were inseparable. 

'Tn the queen’s name,” reiterated the unfortunate 
guardsman, but as if it were a charm of which he doubted 
the potency. 

He could not see what the porter in the darkening 
corridor did, but he guessed that he was shaking his head. 

‘T cannot bring the abbess to this door,” said he, “for 
she has shunned all court and social etiquette, and would 


Met With Fire and Water. 213 

not, for health’s sake, come into this cold hold to converse 
with a military gentleman!” 

‘'Let another come ! Better than all, the young lady her- 
self !” despairingly urged the pleader. “She is not a no- 
vice! she is a widow. She can be bound by no rules un- 
der your roof !” 

“Pho ! that is the very thing which is forbid !” — the man 
being so badgered as to be incautious. 

“Ha! it is clear! they want to suppress her — to stifle 
her testimony !” cried the Gascon, slapping the door with 
rage. 

The warder, perhaps thinking that the hand would 
next come in his direction, clinched, slammed the wicket 
tight and his steps were heard going away in the lobby. 

“Was ever such a pinch!” sighed the other, plucking 
at his chin down till it pained, and he desisted. “Guitaut 
is an old bird who excused himself knowing that these 
nunneries are impregnable and have dragons at the door ! 
And I, in my gull-like state, thought that the name of 
king and queen would make doors open as if struck by 
Porthos’ shoulder ! I should want our whole corps d' elite 
to storm this castle of a monastery ! Or no ! what could 
a regiment do where the defending garrison are old 
prudes and demure nuns? It would not only be unwar- 
like but unmanly!” 

He beat his breast as if he were a penitent before a 
shrine. 

“Now, if that sermonizing Aramis were by, he could 


214 Met With Fire and Water. 

tell me how to deal with nuns, which I fear more to face 
than guns !” 

All he could do was to station himself here on the door- 
step, and send to Guitaut to tell him he had lodged the 
hare but could not extract it from the warren. 

The rattle of the wicket reminded him where he stood, 
with empty hands, bar the letter. As before, the warder 
appeared as far as his face; if anything it was more 
pleasant than before. 

“Oh,’’ said D’Artagnan, relieved, “you have come to 
listen to reason !” 

“No, sir ! it is you who should listen to reason !” 

“Then, the lady superioress !” 

“Her ladyship stands to it that she will transmit her 
majesty’s letter to the Baroness Sansforain; but that she 
cannot under the rules of the order, allow male foot to 
cross this blessed threshold !” 

“But you have male feet, have you not?” protested 
D’Artagnan. 

“I ! I am nephew of a deacon and recommended by the 
bishop! Besides, I am the porter, and never go beyond 
the end of the hall 1 If you came here to poke fun at my 
feet ” 

“Not at all!” replied the Gascon, with a voice which 
would have mollified Lucifer five minutes after he landed 
from his fall out of Paradise. “I will pay for a pair of 
holiday shoes for them!” 

“Thank you, sir, but I belong to the novitiate or bare- 
footed penitents!” 


Met With Fire and Water. 


215 


"‘Your manners are those of a bear, anyway !’" 

“Sir, if you think this is the way to enter, you ” 

“Now, do not mistake me ! I am going to send for my 
instructions ! Meanwhile, I stay here, understand ! I and 
my comrades, allowing no one to quit or enter this house 
while at my post ! If you want your baker, and milk, and 
begging sisters, to come and go out, as the case may be, 
it will be only after I have retired my force! I depart 
only with that lady in my charge I” 

“Oh, you beseige us, then?” cried the porter, becom- 
ing no less bland and yielding. “You would starve these 
excellent women? Ah, what a time when the Spanish 
cross the border; you, gentlemen of the guards, besiege a 
nunnery I” 

“Yes, and stop dubious traffic in which you janitors in- 
dulge, so I have heard.” 

“Sir, you annoy me! and insult the respectable frater- 
nity of doorkeepers !” 

“I am delighted to annoy you in return and in ecstasy, 
up to the eyes, at insulting you, living hindrance to a 
poor captive seeing the world !” 

“Oh, is it thus? Allow me to tell your worship that 
while a child of the Lamb would not hinder you and your 
swaggering wolves in buckram camping down here un- 
der the noses of the maids and damsels of the fold, this 
is our day for flushing the moat. If the mud is more un- 
savory than that of Paris, of which we hear high and 
strong language, and your worshipful’s boots are splashed 
over, it will be your own misfortune, for the world is a 


2I6 


Met With Fire and Water. 


wide one, and the supply of water from the Andelles is not 
equal to the Great Nilus, which holy writ saith watered 
entire kingdoms and drowned Pharaoh’s army!” 

The wicket slammed with a fierceness which made the 
man on the wrong side clap his hand protectively to his 
nose. 

D’Artagnan intuitively looked at the moat — Rubicon of 
his fluctuating destiny, who knows? It had a low level, 
but the yellow and seething mass of rotting weeds began 
to rise as if innumerable eels heaved under it. The scum 
broke up and bubbles swelled and burst like “snowbroth” 
in a freshet; the tide increased till it promised to be bank 
level. 

Presently he could appreciate, with a military engineer’s 
admiration, the ingenuity and precision of the design of 
that hollow way. It was sunken that the excess of the 
ditch might flow into it. 

In a short while, his stand would be untenable. For 
a time he might keep dry shod by stepping on the door- 
sill, but his head would be in perilous proximity to the 
wicket. 

The last phase of the porter’s face did not reassure him 
as to the possibility that a blunderbuss were not as insep- 
arable an article of a porter’s outfit, even in a convent, as 
a broom. 

Repulsed by fire in the first instance, he now yielded 
to water. What intensified the gall was that his men, who 
had before sympathized with him in retiring before the 
bullet, badly concealed their smiles at his fleeing before 


Met With Fire and Water. 


217 

the torrent, and stepping on the paving stones like a lady 
on pattens in the Paris gutter. 

When on dry land he looked back and saw that a pond 
shone between him and that forbidden door. 

“Provided Guitaut can send a crew of seamen, we could 
assault this floating convent!” he dryly said. “A deluge 
recur to swamp it I Our Lady Sansforain must be getting 
valuable to some folks that they keep her cooped up some- 
where. I always had such a love for freedom myself that 
my fingers itch to let out caged birds. Hang me, but I 
long to liberate the duke’s captives in the nunneries I” 

Our cadet had set out in life with the purpose to even 
up his qualities; cultivate the defects and prune the ex- 
uberances. He was trying to be as imperturbable as that 
aristocratic stoic, Athos, but this aqueous reception was 
turpentine on a smoldering brand. 

At such adversities, one would quarrel with his heaviest 
debtor ; yet it is poor policy to differ with one’s wanted as- 
sistants. Still, as he looked for an object on which to 
vent his ire, was fain to do so upon the peasant who 
had led him into meeting this second repulse. Just 
then 

“Halt there!” in Planchet’s strong voice. “Denounce 
yourself !” 

There was a troop of horse on the road. 

“Can they be the Gastonets, with whom that porter 
classed me?” self-questioned the guardsman. “By the 
hands that carried St. John Baptist’s head, I do not want 
them to add themselves to my mocker in there!” 


2I8 


Met With Fire and Water. 


But he recognized the horse and coat of the royal 
musketeers, and immediately one of his friends, into 
whose arms he fell as if rescued from his humiliation. 

^^Congratulate me,” whispered the pious warrior, be- 
lieve my fortune is made. Athos, Porthos and my humble 
self have aided a great personage!” 

‘‘Deplore with me, lucky friend ! My fortune is a-wash ! 
I have not even saved my soles from being soaked 1” 

And pointing to the pool, enlarging into a lake, he re- 
lated his dilemma. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


DOORS ARE NOT MADE,, FOR SOME PERSONS. 

In the companion to Aramis the guardsman saw but the 
acquaintance picked up on the road. Besides, he was full 
of his own woe. 

“Ugly !” noted the musketeer ; “since the queen's name 
does not go, suppose we try the king’s?” 

“Useless ! I doubt the royal trumpets would shake that 
wall. Far less that porter ! But you will need a trumpet 
to roar across that foaming Styx.” 

“Patience, my young wad of tow a-fire ! I have studied 
engineering a little. I remember, in the authors, some- 
thing about the system of sluices and drains. For sim- 
plicity, where water is let in, there is placed the control 
of the two flows.” 

He sent two servants to inspect the moat to the farther 
end. 

They must have found a water gate, for presently the 
water ceased to overflow; then it began to lower and, 
shortly, it would be no higher than covered the bottom of 
the cutting. 

“Capital!” said the guardsman, “I must read engi- 
neering 1” 

An old boat, fallen to pieces, supplied planks laid in a 
line up to the door so that the parleyer could reach it with- 
out being mired. The water had receded, but the sunken 


220 


Doors Are Not Made. 


way was a sheet of mud. The dainty cavalier went up to 
the portals, watched by the young soldier and by the man 
in the cloak. 

Aramis on duty had no respect for the holy structure; 
he banged on the studs in the oak with his pistol butt. 
The sound and its echoes penetrated the vaults as if to 
awaken the dead in the private cemetery. Somebody came, 
though the porter had not been likely to obey. But it was 
a woman’s face that appeared at the aperture. 

It was feminine as the Witch of Endor was of the gen- 
tler sex, but the summoner recoiled, muttering : 

“I do not know if the garden of the Hesperides is be- 
yond, but this is the griffin who guarded that !” 

It was a woman taller than he, raw-boned, strong and 
scowling, such as would be chosen to master lunatics in a 
madhouse. 

“Sir — or madam !” said the polite musketeer, “I beg you 
to open !” 

“Oh, in the queen’s name, as before?” 

“Well, no ! let us suggest the king’s for a change I” 

“It is not for the better ! What business can the king’s 
man have here in a house of women devoted to a higher 
service than his?” 

“Do you not see my insignia, dark as it is? Well, a 
word with your abbess !” 

“She has retired for the night. So have they all ! Come 
to-morrow on the king’s business — or your own ! It will 
not matter, for you will be refused similarly — only, you 


Doors Are Not Made. 221 

will be refused by the regular day janitor ! It will dull the 
asperity 

“Decidedly,” thought Aramis, “this is a griffin, and 
with a tendency towards wit! I am an officer of the 
king,” spoke he, “and the king’s business is not limited 
by time ! Either I to the superior or the Baroness of 
Sansforain to me, and straightway I” 

As to prevent the slide being drawn, he had stuck his 
pistol barrel in the hole and his tone was threatening; it 
was a tolerably ticklish situation for a man, woman or 
griffin. 

“I am not going to check the tears of a weeping widow 
at this hour!” 

“Be it so ! you will have tears of your own to pour out, 
though I doubt you do much weeping! In three days, 
the folded lamb will be dissevered from this flock. His 
most Christian majesty has powers over all ecclesiastical 
corporations in his realm, ever since his predecessor, St. 
Louis, and to let the queen have her goddaughter, he will 
dismantle this convent as he did the castle before it and 
send you all packing to the four corners of the earth I” 

The griffin grinned at the little square gap. 

“Anyone can see you are a soldier — you do not under- 
stand church matters ” 

“The deuce I — that is, the mischief if I do not ! Let me 
tell you that it is the king’s privilege, the queen’s — mark 
that ! — and all the children of the royal families of France 
to have entry into all convents and right of free speech 
with all the nuns !” 


222 


Doors Are Not Made. 


‘There are exceptions,” retorted the argumentalist, nod- 
ding her head waspishly, “and letting that slide, you are 
neither king ” 

“Still less queen, I grant!” Aramis hastened to say. 

“And none of the family ! Furthermore, it is not so much 
your going in but who shall come out! This woman 
whom you burn to see in there is not a nun — she is an in- 
mate ! So !” 

“Are you a learned doctor, by chance?” 

“I am a deaconess, special delegate from a court Chris- 
tian, and certainly more than a lay brother!” 

“I cry your pardon ! Going by the voice and the mus- 
tache, I thought you were not a lay sister !” 

“Not a lay figure, sir! I am a sister, though, to Lady 
Fontevrault, see that! I am the Dame Monacal, who 
wrote the tractate, ‘How the Rev. Father Laplume Has 
Not a Feather to Fly With !’ ” 

“You wrote that famous syllogism?” cried Aramis, in 
rapture, although he had never heard of the paper in his 
life. 

“It is all my work!” said the griffin, slightly less re- 
served. 

“So much the better ” 

“Eh !” 

“Yes; you might be a poetess — authoress is sufficient! 
If you will open, I will bow to your genius ! We can, 
then, discuss like scholars not with the wood between us, 
but within ‘the wood’ — hem ! Plato ! Metaphorically, I 


Doors Are Not Made. 223 

lay aside the sword for I write, sometimes ! Before I 
slipped off the ladder, I was Abbe Herblayf" 

“Ah?” as if trying to recollect. 

“Oh, I have perpetrated just a few madrigals, some- 
what in levity — and not published !” 

“It is so with my tract!” 

Dame Monacal emitted a sound between groan and gur- 
gle which was probably a griffin’s sigh. 

“Bless you 1 Now, if you wish to see it in print, and read 
it in your own cell with elbow room, instead of in those 
confoundedly narrow dungeons of his majesty’s strong 
box called the Bastile of Paris, permit my troubling your 
superior or having the hand of the baroness in mind I” 

“You may be a good poet, but I maintain that your 
range of ecclesiastical law is limited! Do you not know 
that there are religious establishments independent of 
the king ?” 

“Oh, I have heard of the Exclusive House ! Do the 
Broken Hearts derive constitution from the papacy di- 
rect !” 

“Solely ! Go and study the glossary of the papal bulls, 
and with that, good-evening, abbe-musketeer, my orison is 
— make a shift back to your first trade !” 

“Stay !” gasped the solicitor, in a dying voice, since 
literary flattery had no effect on a griffin; “then you do 
not recognize Louis XIII. as head of the church in his 
realm?” 

“Not if he were the three hundred and thirteenth !” 

“Yet, stay! you will save yourself some steps, since 


224 Doors Are Not Made. 

there is another to wrangle with you in matters eccle- 
siastical !” 

“Not that soldier, whom we were obliged to drown out, 
with his brutal arguments?” 

“No, I beg to introduce another, ever in the robe, whose 
reasoning will, I affirm, be pellucid, forcible and carry 
convictions — I might say, condemnation !” — in an ominous 
tone. 

The learned deaconess was at last impressed. 

‘T do not object to waiting to hear your advocate ! All 
debate comes in as a tidbit to one who is under a vow of 
silence ! My supper cools, it is true, but it is porridge, 
and it is good frigid !” 

“Oh, my pleader’s argument will be hot !” With which 
promise Aramis tripped back to his party. 

He related his repulse to D’Artagnan in such a voice as 
would inform Richelieu, who set to meditating. 

The guardsman, almost laughing at another in like dis- 
tress, said : 

“So you still hope? Well, faith is not disagreeable in 
our friends’ failings !” Had he written this, he would 
have anticipated Rochefoucauld. 

“Comrade, I own that this porteress is intractable! I 
would try her by promising to have her pamphlet printed, 
but I cannot find funds for my own first essays in rhyme I” 

“If she is an author and we are penniless, it is hope- 
less. And yet you are so seductive !” 

“My dear, it is a new kind of griffin, the claws and 
eyes of the owl and the face of a cat.” 


Doors Are Not Made. 


225 


“I am sorry to leave the poor baroness in such claws ! 
But I must wait for my captain to come up and advise !” 

'‘Since you can do nothing in the queen’s name and the 
same with me in the king’s, why not have recourse to an- 
other name of might, the enemy’s !” 

“The devil’s?” 

“No, no! Everybody’s enemy, as Prince Gaston, your 
doomster, is everybody’s friend I” 

“You do not mean the cardinal ” 

“—Duke? Yes, I do!” 

“What has he to do with Gaston’s freaks? He has no 
finger in the pie out of which was to leap this sweet, mate- 
less bird, to charm the king, has he?” 

“No, but Richelieu has no ingratitude in his nature! 
Now, while not caring a fig-eater for the bereaved baron- 
ess, he recalls that Pontgibaut is kin to the Count of Ludes, 
and Ludes, when the duke was a simple gentleman, son of 
an adventurous captain, helped to insinuate him into the 
old queen’s cabinet, where he emerged secretary of state !” 

“Oh, how you are all intermarried in France!” sighed 
the Gascon, who had not a tie unless he made one. “But 
if it is true that the minister is an obelisk of gratitude, it is 
he who should help me out in this intricacy!” 

“Oh !” 

“Because the queen, being informed that the latest plot 
is to pivot on the premier and the pivot pin to pierce him, 
went out of her way, out of her fixed moods, and com- 
municated to Capt. Treville the cue that ” 

“Hush! — no, I mean speak up loudly!” cried Aramis, 


226 


Doors Are Not Made. 


delighted at the ray of light, “so the warning which saves 
the great steersman of the ship of state emanates from 
your royal mistress?” 

“Out of her good heart ! for I will maintain that Anne 
has a good heart, though she is weighted with Austria 
and France like a horse carrying ‘correctives’ in each 
saddle pouch !” 

Aramis looked at the silent rider in his cloak, who 
replied, with a sign of complicity : 

“You are right,” said he. “Where king and queen 
fail, his eminence may prevail ! Amen ! As we cannot 
stay here in this damp at the risk of a cold in the head, 
and I abhor that vulgar complaint, the ‘snuffles,’ let us 
have my friend here try his passport to enter into that re- 
pulsive building.” 

D’Artagnan gave the stranger more attention than here- 
tofore on its being stated that he had a key to this ob- 
stacle. 

“Oh, your acquaintance ” 

“The abbe’s friend, sir,” broke in the third party, in a 
low voice, which made the hearers thrill as a glass vibrates 
at certain bass notes. “Your friend, too, since you serve 
that queen who, indeed, is to be farthered in her desire to 
become one with the French! Oh, they say one of the 
hindrances is the king’s adviser! You will mark how 
much I seek to have the queen’s wishes carried out — and 
her protegee shall be carried out to her majesty by you, 
her guard !” 

With a steady step, unlike the slippered priest’s, he paced 


Doors Are Not Made. 


22J 

the string of planks and stopped at the door so long fixed 
and immovable. 

All the musketeers started after the figure so confidently 
confronting the riddle. 

Richelieu removed his riding glove and with a ring on 
his main finger scratched several times with a squeaking 
sound the pane of glass in the wicket. The latter flew 
open with an alarcity not imaginable to the previous ex- 
perimentalists. 

“Whew!’' said D’Artagnan, “the baroness can breathe 
again !” 

“Ah!” said Aramis, triumphantly, “the church for- 
ever!” 

“Ob, oh !” faltered the griffin, seeing a totally different 
applicant than the two foregoing, and impressed by the 
peculiar mode of demanding admission, or at least a hear- 
ing. 

In point of fact, the speaker, being in the dark, and 
what light there was transpiercing the glass was checked 
and slightly refracted by the scratches Richelieu had made 
with his ring. Those scratches were not made at ran- 
dom, at least chance does not often trace the Roman ini- 
tials which stand in the Latin for: “In the name of the 
Father !” 

She was impressed by this hieratical means of enfor- 
cing admission. 

“I — I expect now that you do not come in the name of 
the king or the queen?” 


228 


Doors Are Not Made. 


“Sister, I come in the name of the holy father was 
the rejoinder in Latin, with stress on the latter words. 

This reply was so satisfactory or compulsory on the 
learned writer of the famous tractate, that bars and bolts 
were heard being undone with feverish haste. Both folds 
of the massive doors were unfolded as to majesty itself, 
and as if a coach were to be driven in. 

“So ho!” mumbled the guardsman, “we have at last 
somebody in France who goes in where king and even 
queen are denied !” 

Aramis did not reply, but laid his finger on his fine 
lips. 

The doors closed on Richelieu entering. 

As if he had been the architect, he stepped up the pas- 
sage and only paused before the porter’s box. But the 
way beyond was no longer gray, but black. 

“Lights !” said he, as if in his own house and a servant 
was delinquent. 

But the porteress was overcome ; she sank into the por- 
ter’s wadded chair as if palsied. 

Two other strong-looking women, wearing coarse 
gowns, with their arms bare for energetic support of the 
janitress, came out of the side room; they had a thick 
candle in a heavy, brass stick a-piece. 

Richelieu held up his hand with the fingers in a certain 
position. 

“To the lady superior,” said he, advancing. 

^'Praying — the sister on night duty is to be seen, 



“I am one who calls at any hour ! Woe to those found slecpini? !” 

(See pai>:e 229') 




Doors Are Not Made. 229 

though!’' ventured the tamed griffin, leaning forward in 
the chair. 

As if she had not spoken, the visitor repeated: 

“To the superior 1” 

One of the light bearers spoke to a woman within an- 
other grated door which was opened; the other, bowing, 
let the man pass and followed so that he was between the 
lights. Conducted up a flight of stone stairs, where cer- 
tainly riding boots had not struck with their spurred heels, 
he was left in an antechamber. A woman was reading 
out of an immense folio held on a praying stand ; Porthos 
could not have held it on his shoulder for five minutes. 

The two nuns stood outside the last door, for the stand 
had tapers burning for the reader. 

“The superior!” said the intruder, again. 

The reading woman answered, perplexed at this stately 
apparition : 

“The mother is sleeping or praying for us. I — I — she 
ought not be disturbed!” 

“I am one who calls at any hour ! Woe to those found 
sleeping !” 

“Oh, you are the Bishop of Lugon?” saluting. 

“Nigher the throne !” 

“The archbishop?” 

“Still nigher!” 

“Oh, Miseracorda! the cardinal-primate!” 

“The superior !” as if for the last time. 

She left him alone. 

“Faith of my fathers !” muttered he, proof to the chill 


230 


Doors Are Not Made. 


in the stony enclosure, the whitened walls, the cold, blue 
flags, and the absence of color and warmth, ‘‘if even I have 
a palace and guards, may they be as stanch as these 
goodly sisters!” He looked at the open volume. “No 
illuminations ? That is an excess of dullness I ‘Paraphrase 
of the Parables !’ I would forgive the woman if she had 
a novelita between the chilling pages!” 

The reader did not return, but the mother nun pre- 
sented herself. 

She saluted the dignitary formally, bui with grace of 
long practice — the undiminished court dame’s bearing. 

Richelieu gazed on what little the crossed, white hands 
allowed visible of the lineaments of the star of Henry 
IV.’s court. The dazzling complexion was sallow, the 
lips washed out, the cheeks sunken, but the eyes be- 
witching. 

“She is genuinely converted?” queried he; “we shall 
judge here solely by her action.” 

Thereupon, without giving time for any plan of subter- 
fuge to be formed and essayed, he spoke to the point, not 
in word alluding to her brilliant past, but treating her 
as lady of a castle, not a convent — one with a broken life, 
perhaps, but not a broken heart — for one can be mended, 
not the other. Far from demanding a jail delivery, he 
seemed but to have called to escort home a lady guest 
accommodated for a week or two, for her “retreat” from 
society. 

“Sister, the queen desires the company of this poor 
Baroness of Sansforain. She doubts not the cloister’s 


Doors Are Not Made. 


231 


tranquillity and your consolation have softened her an- 
guish. This time she will be escorted to town with so 
strong a guard that she will not be molested. I warrant 
this. So, on the instant, since my minutes are counted in 
the king’s business, let the lady be notified, let her dress 
for the ride while I offer my apologies and give my thanks 
for your speedily meeting my wishes.” 

Her lips were bronze, though her eyes were incandes- 
cent points. 

He frowned; he began to reflect if this opposition did 
not come from complicity with Gaston, for here arose the 
same opposition only more deeply rooted. He frowned a 
little less, for he had the clew. This lady was of the 
Montpensiers, to whose daughter was to be espoused 
Prince Gaston, lest he married a foreign princess, and so 
thrust a stick between the spokes of Richelieu’s wheel of 
foreign policy. 

^‘You have one moment to redeem your frowardness,” 
said he, incisively, as from a mouth of steel. 

'‘Your eminence, that young woman is a snare for excess 
of charm,” said the abbess, like a good judge of a rare 
enthraller; “she is a firebrand to set the very thrones 
aflame.” 

She no longer dared be silent, but she sought to dally. 

“She is the foremost witness to her husband’s murder. 
She must appear at the trial of his murderers. As you 
are no longer worldly, this concerns you not a letter.” 

His tone carried the threat that she must not intervene 
in politics or suffer the result. 


232 


Doors Are Not Made. 


“Eminence, her words being full of revenge and thirst 
for blood, will bring more than one head to the scaffold 
and send more than one into prison or exile/’ 

“Let justice be done. I see that you have been ques- 
tioning her.” 

“There was no need,” replied the ex-court paragon, 
contemptuously. “Country born, she is effusive and un- 
governed. Here, secluded, ^as among mutes, no noble 
blood will be spilt on her behalf.” 

As she became warmer with debate, her interrogator 
became colder. 

“Blood spilled must be expiated. Blood invokes 
blood,” he added, in Latin. “What to you, sister,” he 
asked, abruptly, as a magistrate does to perplex a crimi- 
nal, “are these Rieux, Harcourts and the dirt-bedraggled 
fringe of that scapegrace prince’s garments.” 

“Little they, but 

“Do not mislead. You fear that the blood reflowing 
when that corpse is produced before the murderers, will 
blot the marriage deed of the Montpensier heiress with the 
head of Anjou?” 

“Your eminence is often right.” 

“Enough! Prince Gaston’s head is always dear by its 
closeness to the one I am vowed to cherish, but even it 
must fall if marked in God’s avengement of murder. In 
the meanwhile, do not thrust your hand between the 
block and the ax. Send me the baroness.” 

She trembled. That was a scorching eye on her, and the 
voice rang like a knife being sharpened on a wheel. 


Doors Are Not Made. 


m 


**You owe me now for ten wasted minutes.’* 

To be in Richelieu’s debt! 

“Where is that sister ?” cried he, raising his voice so that 
it was audible in the next room. “I see that I must order 
here, if only for the sake of discipline.” 

She sprang between him and her bedroom. 

‘T begin to think that you do not acknowledge me chief 
of our church,” said he, with intense scorn. 

“Oh, in France.” 

“Who are you to lay down limits, pray?” 

“They are laid down. The foundation of the Broken 
Hearts emanates from the papal chair direct ” 

The other looked at her so steadily and effectually that 
her brain was giddy; she felt as one on a bridge at feel- 
ing it quake and dreading that its pediments are giving 
way. 

“Is it the holy father alone who is obeyed here ?” 

“That is it,” replied she, with her last resolution. “No 
king, no primate. His holiness alone.” 

“Thus, it is plain that your relations with Rome are 
less intimate than with Anjou. For,” he held out his ring 
under her eyes, having slid aside the cover to the bezel, 
which showed St. Peter’s emblem carved in adamant. 

“The Fisher’s Ring I” gasped she, recoiling till the wall 
stopped her and leaving the room door free. 

“It is the authorized duplicate — none other.” 

“The alter-ego!” muttered she, waving her hands before 
her as though the stone shot blasting beams. 


234 


Doors Are Not Made. 


Richelieu was the pope’s legatee unnamed — the repre- 
sentative of the Vatican in France, perhaps the universe. 

Full of spite, she ejaculated : 

“You hold here for the pope? You who told Paul a 
lie about your age when he prematurely made you a 
bishop ! Well might he say, on learning the deception, that 
you would be a great knave, and you who warred against 
him for the Valteline. You representative of ” 

“Silence! This is not to the point. The baroness, or 
you no longer have house over your head in Europe.” 

That threat might have left her unconquered, but she 
saw that this man’s power was illimitable. She bowed 
and looking into her room, said, in a tremulous voice: 

“Graville I” 

The frightened reader reappeared. 

“Fly to the boarders’ ward. Arouse the Baroness of 
Sansforain, who should dress for a journey to Paris. Tell 
her the queen awaits her, to shelter her, for the myrmidons 
of Prince Gaston are on her track from her last refuge. 
The queen’s own guards await her at the gates.” 

The woman hurried forth without presuming to dart a 
glance at this redoubtable subjugator, who had tamed the 
tigress in the nun’s cloth. 

Richelieu gallantly offered his hand to the abbess, but 
as she had no strength to touch it, he led her to the chair 
at the reading stand. He looked down on her with hum- 
bling pity, and observed : 

“Confinement here and uncongenial fare have wasted 
your tact and insight, poor sister. You would embark on 


Doors Are Not Made. 


235 


a vessel which will not arrive at its port. Never — never, 
while I breathe, shall Prince Gaston be ruler of our coun- 
try. And, after I shall be no more, Louis XIII. will 
have a fit successor, or I shall have a fit successor myself 
— we have looked to both issues. The empire will be shat- 
tered. Spain will rot in its rags with the gold thread 
rubbed out, in poverty, the Lazarus of kingdoms. Italy 
will grovel in the ruins of palaces and old, imperial tombs ; 
but France! France is the true daughter of the church. 
She is the true wolf cub, and the old she wolf will nourish 
her to the end.'’ 

In the fifteen minutes or so, making an hour since the 
pretended chance acquaintance of Aramis had gone from 
their sight, he reappeared at the formidable gates. But 
he was accompanied by a veiled woman whose gait and 
contour were certainly not the ungainly Griffin’s. At the 
mere turn of the head and the dulled glint of lively eyes 
through the net, D’Artagnan’s heart leaped, as if it would 
qualify him to belong to the Broken Hearts. Aramis 
made an elaborate bow, with hat off. 

“The queen’s godchild!” said the cardinal-duke, as if 
presenting a protegee of his own. 

A horse had been prepared especially for her by the 
bearer of the letter of invitation now tendered her. 

“I expect her to receive the respect which we all owe 
her majesty.” 

They went right on in the night. The churchman rode 
like a hunter. For the lady’s sake, though, the pace was 
moderated enough for Athos to overtake them, and Por- 


Doors Are Not Made. 


236 

thos reached the barriers of Paris before them by having 
gone straight to the goal, without interruptions impairing 
his digestion of the Anjou feast. 

The whole cavalcade was imposing as it entered the 
Louvre main gates. 

“By the mustache of Mars,” remarked the old corporal 
under the arch, catching a peep at the lady, “if they have 
made that captive in their flying trip into Spain, I would 
I be of the next expedition. I want an idol in my ingle- 
nook for the winter of my life, with everburning eyes of 
that luster. It would save me candles.” 

Richelieu had his lodgings in the palace as prime min- 
ister. 

As he formally placed the baroness under the charge of 
D’Artagnan, he said : “With my compliments to the 
queen, and, pray, say that I am ever her indebted.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


THE CONSPIRACY COMES UP AGAIN. 

It may be that the prime minister, seldom doubting the 
extent of his elevation, was already planning his palace 
bearing his name, but at present he appeared fully con- 
tent with the ministerial residence. Since Francis L^s 
time, the left wing of the Louvre was set apart for the 
royal counselors, in Whitehorse Court. 

His study and library had windows on the Honor Court- 
yard. 

Access to the cabinet was by an anteroom, parted off 
into two, but showing the high hall, heavy with Italian 
sculptures in varied material. Here the watchers, ushers 
and clerks worked too diligently to criticise them. 

Although Louis, after the Fleury incident, doubled the 
detachment of musketeers to preserve his First Man, the 
latter designed to have a quite independent force. More 
than on the company he relied on his gentlemen-pension- 
ers. Trained in the use of arms, they were the more 
valuable for fidelity and intelligence. They were proud 
of their brand-new insignia, the Richelieu ducal crown 
and three gold chevrons. 

In the reception room were copyists and pages, in- 
structed to be ready to help secure any fanatic, insane 
petitioner, or the man with a grievance who haunts the 


2)8 The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 

chief secretary’s office with a paper in one hand and a 
dagger up his sleeve. 

In the study itself, decipherers, transcribers and secre- 
taries of the highest characters, labored under the mas- 
ter’s eye. They not only assisted him with state papers, 
but in filling up the blanks in the plays with which he 
amused himself and furnished the plots; as most were 
weapons against his enemies, their dramatic worth is 
nothing compared with the veiled allusions and unfold- 
ing of mysteries not easily unriddled by us. Nearest his 
seat, a vast armchair, was a mahogany table bound with 
brass at the corners, at which wrote Desmarets, Cheret and 
that Chavigny reputed to be his son. 

Richelieu adored cats, like all fond of the library, of 
which they are the born protectors against mice. Friquet 
was brought back, for it was disporting with a grave, 
long-whiskered Persian puss among shreds of paper — “a 
parlor tiger.” 

'T do not know,” said Cheret, in one of those notes 
which ruined him, '‘whether we are most annoyed by the 
litter of paper or of his grimalkins.” 

On the walls were choice paintings, the Richelieu family 
tree, for he was of good extraction and his father be- 
came knight in the royal orders of chivalry; family por- 
traits, and the king’s and the queen’s. 

The last was more likely to rekindle love than foster the 
passion for reprisal in a jilted man. Anne was splendid 
in a Spanish ball dress of green and gold embroidery. 

Armand Duplessis, first Duke of Richelieu, that great 


The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 239 

and gloomy figure overshading the coming years, sat at 
ease, acting as if alone when with his secretaries. Sleep- 
ing at will, like all men formed for continuous toil, he 
was not dozing. 

But, like the cat asleep, he was dreaming of the chase. 

Father Joseph had assured him that the plot found in 
Louvigny’s last papers was not nipped effectually; on the 
contrary, it had taken on leaves with new life. Chalais, 
over whom hung prosecution for the slaying of Baron 
Sansforain, for he would be the martyr for Anjou, be- 
lieved that in the prosecution of his scheme was his only 
means to annul the legal prosecution. Chalais had be- 
come a familiar of the Duchess of Chevreuse, that con- 
fidante of Anne of Austria, and the shining light of op- 
position, which lured many a gallant like the favorite into 
a sea of blood, where he perished. 

“It is written here,” read Desmarets, “that the duchess 
ought to be imprisoned.” 

“It would only embitter her and lead her to scorn of 
all restrictions.” 

He had hoped that the restored Anne-Charlotte would 
displace Lady Chevreuse, but the latter was, perhaps, the 
queen's confederate, which made her stronger attached 
than mere confidence and pleasing companionship. 

“The count!” was announced. 

This count, of the many of that title, was that Count 
Rochefort, who had been enamored of the young queen, 
and, like his master, been rebuked; this was a common 
bond between them. Whatever there aim, the count was 


240 The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 

entirely devoted to him. He was a dark, long-faced man, 
tall, supple, active to excess. The scar which disfigured 
an otherwise winsome countenance, said to be the score 
of a queen’s gallant to reprove his revelation of their in- 
timacy, marred all; it had embittered him who could no 
longer hope to entrance a queen. 

Under twenty costumes, which he wore with faithful- 
ness to the character designed, changing age, bearing, 
speech and his very spirit to suit, he had a finger in all the 
mysterious deeds of the period. 

“The Count Diabolus” took off his gloves — not to show 
his fine hands, but to take from secret pockets in them 
pieces of thin paper, to be laid before the two secretaries. 

It might be in doubt whether Father Joseph was the 
subordinate in the church to his apparent superior, or 
able to dislodge him at any moment, but it could not be 
supposed that Rochefort was more than the politician’s 
evil genius. But our readers will, we hope, remember him ; 
we made him the mainspring of our previous romance, 
“The Three Musketeers.” 

“Your eminence,” began he, bowing low, but with the 
air of being the left-hand man here, if not the right. “We 
are on the line about that Chalais; he is persistent. He 
is pernicious.” 

“Chalais militant,” sneered Richelieu, “nonentity, friv- 
olous, vain, vapid. In former times kings had at table a 
peacock served as the leading dish, for show. Now they 
have their peacock displayed alive. But without sauce, 
it is an insipid fowl.” 


The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 241 

‘‘Which will not always agree with the king. But I 
have followed up the hint that Father Joseph gave me 
about the attempt to throw the king from his horse; it 
could not be Chalais’ work. No !” 

“That villain was, perhaps, of no party.’’ 

“I suspect that he is one of those parasites torn from 
the tree to which it clung and sucked the vitality. Cast 
down, it writhes like a serpent, and if it can injure by its 
sap, which is poison, that he will do.” 

“Ah ! it is these ignoble hands bringing about down- 
falls of importance, which upset our calculations. An 
avalanche in the Switzerland starts on its crushing glide 
by a man shouting good-night to his sweetheart. Man will 
be man and not spirit till he can foresee and correct these 
accidents.” 

“In a word, Chalais has learned nothing. He has re- 
embarked on that tumultuous sea called treason.” 

“Hoping his lordship will carry him through, of course. 
This ship is called ” 

“Anjou! Only, the adventurer is not on the ship yet; 
in the skiff which may transfer him to the ship drawing 
inshore, in case the land is too hot to be pleasant.” 

“This skiff?” 

“It is Chalais, but the colors he hoists are the Chev- 
reuse !” 

“They are two of a pair?” 

“As one.^’ 

“Odd, he has been witched. He is not reported as with 
the duchess. Is he ubiquitous.” 


242 The Conspiracy Comes Up Again, 

“Iniquitous! The king, deafened by Baradas’ hunting 
horn solos, aches to see more of Chalais — it is the duchess 
who weans him away/’ 

“Would not the duke constrain this courtier to forbear 
meeting his duchess on the sly — for, since the lady is for- 
bidden the palace, they must meet in secrecy ?” 

“I think that the duke winks at it. He is appointed by 
his lady one of the cabal, and promised half the loaves and 
fishes by the intriguante.” 

“The duke could be glutted, but what does she, the cor- 
morant, count to gain by this warmed-up plot?” 

“Spite gratified! I do not know that it is catching, 
by marriage, but the duchess is widow of that Albert 
Luynes, first favorite of our Louis, who murdered Con- 
cini to oblige his monarch. Now, the Chevreuse woman 
wishes to induce Chalais, or another dupe, to kill the head 
of the state.” 

He spoke plainly, but he lowered his sharp voice. 

“We may let the two collude,” said the duke, “for we 
can so net them together. But it is impossible to pick up 
all the threads in such a snarl.” 

“Impossible ! They are as widely apart as Spain, Hol- 
land and Germany.” 

“They can be watched everywhere. As for the queen, 
her correspondence with her brother is read, copied and 
passed on regularly, eh, Fhavigny!” 

The young gentleman among the writers nodded. 

Rochefort smiled to himself. On finding that Lady 
Combalet, the cardinal’s niece, was attendant upon the 


The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 243 

queen, and spy, and being shunned for her suspicious con- 
nection, consorting with Baroness Sansforain, he had 
christened them “with their own tears,” the two Niobes. 

“As for Austria, how far, think you, count, is the 
Marquis Laisque authorized to compromise his putative 
father and emperor ?” 

“He is in the Low Countries. Father Joseph is at 
home there, in at the holy houses.” 

“Yes, but why would the light-headed marquis frequent 
holy houses?” 

“Why, theoretically, an ambassador, and he is one; is 
on his own native soil wherever he stands; but he does 
not feel insured against a dash of French light horse, 
which would catch him up by the saddle bow and drop 
him on our side of the border. So he will confer with the 
envoy of the prince and the duchess in a place decidedly 
neutral to all arms.” 

“A place more inviolate than an embassy mansion? 
What is that?” 

“Any religious establishment.’’ 

Richelieu made a grimace; after the adventure among 
the Broken Hearts, he could not be blamed if not be- 
lieving few places are invulnerable. 

“Wherever the marquis is,” said he, “go make his ac- 
quaintance. Chalais has his liberty at this hour as under 
a cloud about the Sansforain affair, and, taking umbrage 
at the king’s inclination toward that bugle player. Can he 
be active agent of this conspiracy ?” 


244 The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 

“He is the weaver’s shuttle,” said the chief spy, em- 
phatically. 

“Then, in time, he must commune with Laisques. You 
are a Protean man ; disguise and stay with Laisques so as 
to be by at their conference. Catch Chalais with in- 
criminatory papers upon him, and he shall suffer for it, 
if he should not for the Sansforain matter.” 

Rarely had he been so energetic. 

“Incrminatory ?” 

“If he involves no matter whom in his detestable web.” 

Rochefort looked over up at the queen’s portrait and 
delicately scratched the tip of his ear. 

“Yes, all!” and the count understood that while he 
might forgive Anne of Austria, for his scarred face, 
Richelieu would never do so for the scar on his vanity. 

“Laisques is subtle in mind.” 

“Oh ! I shall introduce myself with saintly simplicity. 
Just as Chalais will plead that he turns on the king for 
being disfavored, I shall say you are the severest tyrant 
that ever was, and that I am sick of my monstrous serv- 
itude.” 

“By my faith I” said Richelieu, with that tone of enjoy- 
ment which always puzzled his buffoons as to the sin- 
cerity, “if you say that to the marquis with that genuine 
gusto, you will deceive him.” 

“I am your direst foe. I am full of all the scandal 
against you.” 

“Detail some of it, of the freshest 1” and he leaned back 
to relish the budget. 


The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 245 

^‘The very latest is that I cannot overlook your releas- 
ing from the custody in which the Duke of Anjou left her, 
as a trouble feast to the nobility in her wail against her 
husband’s slayers, that little widow from the south, who 
has possessed the queen.” 

“Come, come, why should I espouse her cause?” 

“Not to offend Prince Gaston, but because you see in 
her the charming companion to while away the time fall- 
ing heavy by the absence of Chalais and the failing of 
Baradas to oust him.” 

“So this ” 

“Aurora of a gay time at court.” 

“No, not Aurora; Anne-Charlotte, for she bears the 
queen’s name, of course. Do you think she has captivated 
the unimpressionable one?” 

“I only know that the king was vexed when, going to 
Blois, the time he had the Vendomes imprisoned, he found 
that his queen was not accompanied by the baroness.” 

“I can believe anything you say, Rochefort, but, Louis 
in love!” 

“Bah! I was intended for the church, I, myself, for 
being frigid, and with no more emotion than a paving 

stone. But ” He glanced up at the royal portrait 

again significantly and impudently. 

“It is true,” said Richelieu, suppressing a sigh, “that 
rogue, Cupid, has such an arsenal of arrows that some- 
time or another each gets winged.” 

“She is worthy a prince.” 

“True, true enough ! But,” like one who lifts his voice 


246 The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 

as his friend treads shaking grounds, “hie you to Brus- 
sels !” 

“I wish to consult Father Joseph, who knows everybody, 
while I am ignorant as St. Anthony’s pig about this son 
of the archduke who may be an arch devil.” 

“Learn all you can, but be ready when I have my final 
instructions. Remember, you must return with Chalais a 
prisoner. Would you like guards, for the king, since that 
late event, has sent me forty musketeers more.” 

“No, I shall go alone.” 

The next day Rochefort, having learned all he required 
of the inexhaustible Joseph, started on his errand. He 
was also instructed by his gray eminence how to wear 
the costume he adopted for the road ; a Franciscan’s frock. 
At the barriers, the guard, not troubling him as a humble 
pedestrian, he heard a country squire, coming to see 
Paris, ask the lieutenant of the watch, what was the latest 
news. 

“Does that Chalais still reign?” demanded he, to show 
that he knew the little bird flew in the palace grounds. 

“Yes, Chalais reigns; only, what Chalais?” 

“Oh, are there more than one?” 

“The king, long life to him*! having expelled the count 
for overpresumption in throwing away a glass from which 
the king refused a drink, because there was fly in it, fell 
out of favor. But since the name is delightful to the 
king, he has replaced the count with his cousin ” 

“Oh ! if Chalais has a cousin ” 

* My dear sir, know that a royal favorite is never alone 


The Conspiracy Comes Up Again. 247 

in the world. Assuredly, Count Chalais has a cousin — a 
very pretty cousin, and so, you see, there is no foundation 
for the tale that it was Lady Combalet in the queen's suite 
who enchanted the sovereign.” 

Rochefort bought him a mule and hurried on. 

‘‘Chalais is dead,” muttered he, “but long live La Cha- 
lais !” 


CHAPTER XXL 


THE SPECTER OF THE LOUVRE. 

Innovations and modernization so debases and depoet- 
izes a scene that it is next to impossible to repicture the 
queen’s ladies’ suite in the long hall, having a painted 
ceiling with relief stucco figures in a quaint style, paintings 
let into the wall without regard for the cuttings they made 
in the fresco, with a great fireplace arched over by bronze 
and marble, instead of that horrible token of decadence, 
the sheet-iron wood stove guarded — as if anyone but a 
horrified artist would steal it away — by old soldiers in 
dull blue. Cellini would have laid his elaborately chiselled 
fireirons about their ears. 

Although ladies of the highest families, they were por- 
tionless, like girls then, and looked for dribblings from 
the royal purse; but Anne’s was flat after the Spanish 
duennas went through it, and squeezed with the persist- 
ency of a prudent nation. 

To each side were the dormitories, double-bedded in 
some cases, and all sordid and furnished. 

It was plain that Louis, the King, was not addicted to 
feminine tendencies, and the queen had no treasurer. 

Nevertheless, there was a slight freedom, if you knew 
how to obtain it. And from the Broken Hearts’ Convent, 
at all events, there was change desirable. The buzz and 
perfumes of the court penetrated here; the lively prome- 


249 


The Specter of the Louvre. 

naders in the gardens and of the Tuileries could be seen, 
and, though the queen was under the dull cloud of her 
husband’s neglect, some foresaw that she would have her 
high day. Visitors came. If she did not dance cardinals 
every day, she did have concerts. 

It was a terribly painful gantlet to run, this reappear- 
ance of Lady Sansforain in the maids and ladies of honors’ 
company; but, she was set apart by her incontestable 
beauty, her quickness to learn all the turns of the head 
and hand, arts of the costume and toilet, and with all, a 
straightforwardness and real goodness of disposition. 
There are idols which cannot be set in a row, but must 
have a niche each of its own. 

Anne-Charlotte spoke French with the rich. Southern 
accent, and Spanish like a native, but more musically than 
any of the queen’s fellow countrywomen, which endeared 
her ; but, above all, she sang with that touchingness which 
makes the delighted hearer careless as to the words. 

Her widowhood, however brief, separated her from the 
maids and she had the knack to be grave enough with 
the more matronly ladies. But they were jealous of a 
growing enchanting of the queen, especially since the 
Duchess of Chevreuse was banished to Lorraine after the 
Fleury affair. So she naturally gravitated into the com- 
pany of that other ostracised lady of honor. Lady Com- 
balet. 

As Cardinal Richelieu’s niece, she was sure to be styled 
his spy on the queen; it is probable she was the stalking 
horse to an unrevealed witness. Excluded by the other 


250 The Specter of the Louvre. 

ladies, royalist and even Anjouists, she speedily paired off 
with this latest comer. 

When Lady Combalet was often twitted with her uncle 
having danced to the queen, she answered: “That is 
nothing but common politeness. I have played to her 
singing.^^ 

So Marie Combalet was not sorry to see Anne-Char- 
lotte take place as accompanyist to their royal mistress, 
read from the Spanish romanceroes, or sing to her. From 
her simplicity, she believed she would learn as much as 
by her assiduous watching. 

Suddenly a new phase of the jealousy with which such 
appendages of royalty visit all additions to their ranks, 
accentuated Baroness Sansforain’s position. It was noised 
and noisily, too, ere long that the king had singled her 
out of the bevy as worthy his infrequent worship of the 
sex. 

She, in all plainness, was considered propped by two 
buttresses; through her friendship with Lady Combalet 
she had the cardinal’s favor, through her acceptance of 
the king’s timid adoration she had the latter’s — betv;een 
crozier and crown. 

Without believing her icicle capable of melting, and 
far less her protegee so ungrateful, the queen let some of 
her coolness towards Richelieu’s relative evaporate upon 
her bedroom mate. 

Who set afloat the history of Louis, the Chaste’s, first 
essay in unofficial lovemaking ? Who can tell now ? Some 
master hand of occult deviltry who uses virtue as weapon, 


The Specter of the Louvre. 251 

conducted this plot so as to redouble the persecution by 
which Louis made Anne hate him. 

Singularly enough, while Anne looked upon Anjou^s 
endeavor to dethrone his brother with some curiosity, 
rather than indignation, as we watch two deadly insects 
fight to the death in a glass, she felt enraged when this 
young widow, apparently, was trying to usurp her station 
as wife. 

Then Chalais, as if he counted on this kinswoman of 
his taking his place, had quitted Paris; no doubt, he 
would return when this Circe had wiled away the lethar- 
gic monarch. 

The worst was, that the queen was nearly beguiled into 
giving the Duke of Anjou’s agent a token for the em- 
peror’s representative, by which he could be identified as 
the queen’s deputy. 

Under other circumstances, the new and incontestable 
beauty would have had all the lady-killers of the capital 
credited to her; but D’Artagnan, with biting lips, had to 
hear often and often again that no one dared enter the 
lists where he might find, when the antagonist’s visor was 
lifted, the head of his king. As no poet sung her, no 
minstrel serenaded under the dormitory windows, and no 
jewels or even nosegays flowed to her apartment, it was 
clear that all waited for the flood to be led by royal 
offerings. 

As the Egyptologists can make their own versions of a 
scratch or two on a stone, any chance expression of the 
baroness, any sign or look when the king’s name was ut- 


252 The Specter of the Louvre. 

tered, all was converted into an avowal of “this first pas- 
sion of the unimpassioned king.’' 

This hidden impulsion to force the king to compromise 
Lady Sansforain — for, to her honor, be it said, no one 
thought that they could incline her in any way — had to 
culminate soon. 

Chalais gone, Baradas evidently a shooting star — a gap 
which the court fools could not fill — the king could not 
be distracted. 

After a mud bath in the slough of despond, a monarch 
is apt to take a bath of blood; this black despair was 
like that into which Louis fell when he had Concini mur- 
dered. 

Bjut those who based hopes on any passion of his, were 
puzzled. Anne-Charlotte, though allied to the Chalais, 
the Montlucs and the Ludes, did not seem to have any 
close friends who would share in the spoils due to the 
infatuation. 

Certainly, after Prince Gaston’s having her husband 
slain and almost marring her beauty — a greater crime in 
a woman’s sight — never would she assist his espousers. 
The queen was cool in gratitude since the scandal at- 
taching her to the royal suitor thickened. A Spaniard and 
a Florentine were similar in not being nice as to a spoon- 
ful of poison slipping into the chocolate instead of sugar. 

The only other ally she might secure was the cardinal, 
and her pairing off with Lady Combalet almost ensured 
that. 

There were fawners, who would have thrown them- 


The Specter of the Louvre. 253 

selves in the way of the king, perhaps, but none to cross 
the cardinal. 

With the king “mooning,” no more gambling, no musi- 
cal parties, no dancing, and the garden strolls dreary, with- 
out light speaking or any laughter, the Jester Langley, 
caught conspicuously spading up a flower bed and asked 
why he delved, lugubriously asked in return : 

“If one buries ‘Good Henry’ ” — the king’s epithet for 
Chalais — “what will come up ?” No one attempted to un- 
riddle. “Oh, another Talle-rond (Talleyrand) that is, 
a round shoot, or ‘sucker,’ as gardeners say.” 

That evening, after the miserable supper, the queen 
waited upon by her stiff and somber own Spaniards, Lady 
Combalet, rooming with Lady Sansforain, shut up her 
spinnet testily and went to peer out of the window. The 
sky was gray and but little rosy, the garden shadowy and 
not inviting with their formal arrangement; Louis, in a 
recent fit of scrupulosity, had ordered some statues which 
had delighted Francises and Diana of Poitiers, deposed. 
It made all monotonous green. 

“What ails you, dear?” inquired Anne-Charlotte, af- 
fected by the outer gloom as much as by the one enter- 
ing on her soul. 

“Heaviness of the head.” 

“I pity you, if it is like that on my heart.” 

Lady Combalet sighed. 

“It is dreadfully early; what can we do to liven up?” 

“We are free here to do what we list, since the queen 


254 The Specter of the Louvre. 

said that she should not want us, though it is our turn. 
The inevitable Spaniards will suffice for her needs.’' 

‘T care not to sing ‘The Lament of the Moors’ or ‘The 
Cid to Ximena.’ Rather the canticles I learned in the 
Carmelite Convent where I took refuge after my hus- 
band’s death — a man who gave me such a distaste for 
married life that I lived in a cell and in sackcloth for 
fear I should be married again against my choice.” 

This was true, and, still more odd, while she wore sack- 
cloth, she was made attiring woman to the queen and 
passed among the bedizened ladies in her nun’s gown. 
But this sorry apparel did not daunt her suitors when 
her uncle became first of the ministry. 

“Why has the queen forbid our sauntering in the 
grounds after dark ?” asked the nun turned dame of honor. 

“It was Lady Laboissiere who said that she had spied 
by the wall of the losery all your lovers, the Counts of 
Sault and of Soissons and Lord de Booze and the Duke 
of Bethunes.” 

“My lovers? They might have left out the Sault.” 

“And the Breezy one, too — ^that is, according to the 
queen, who was up in arms for you in a twinkling.” 

“The queen defending me?” 

“Yes, she declared that four lovers were too many — 
such tales should be believed but by half.” 

“My dear, cut again. The qnly card to come out is 
the Count of Soissons, who will marry me if they can 
only expunge my having wed that low fellow, Combalet! 


The Specter of the Louvre. 255 

My dear sister, whatever you do, never marry beneath 
you r 

The other sighed, as if she had not fixed her eyes on 
a duke as yet. The air came in off the garden without a 
sound. 

“What a dull prospect. Who would think this court is 
in the land of the living ?’’ 

“Or loving? Four lovers. If only I could see that 
one,” and she leaned out of the casement, so that her 
companion seized her to prevent the pretended fall. “Not 
an owl, even. Oh, how I envy those men. Never are 
they mopish as long as they can have dice or a pack of 
cards.” 

“Have you cards? We might make a game at some- 
thing or another.” 

“Being widows, we cannot play ‘Old Maids !’ ” 

“We will play the great international game, ‘Beat Your 
Neighbor Out of Doors !’ Wait! Who has cards? Oh, 
the fair Zera. Half a minute.” 

But more than half a minute elapsed without the card- 
seeker returning. 

“May a gnat bite her!” cried Anne-Charlotte, eventu- 
ally, “I do believe she saw Lord Soissons on the wall, 
when she hung out, and he signed her to meet him some- 
where, spite of the prohibition. But what cares the cardi- 
nal’s niece for regulations when he is so great a man. 
Did not the king send his own mother into poverty be- 
cause she put herself openly in a plot against the minister? 
And if the queen does not like Richelieu, the king all the 


256 The Specter of the Louvre. 

more remains his friend. Yet what kind of a friend is he? 
The queen saves his life by a timely warning, and yet he 
prompts the king to hate her day by day. 

‘‘Oh, still Combalet stays away. What a poor guard 
they must keep out there to let even a great personage 
like Soissons hang about among the daffodils and sweet- 
briar. I wonder my own guardsman,” she laughed at the 
title which no one had heard from her lips, least of all her 
nominee concerned. “My own watch should let some- 
thing or other blind him, if he lets the count pass him 
unchallenged.” 

Going to the window once more, but keeping in the 
shadow, she peered forth. It was so dark now that she 
saw a light as if a glowworm’s, but it must have been a 
lantern’s light, and tolerated. 

“It’s the turn out of the guard,” reasoned she. “Pro- 
voking thing that that D’Artagnan should be given a step, 
for since he is sub-ensign he only comes with the sentries, 
once in a while, and departs instanter. As a private, he 
would be there for his set hours. I cannot even ask news 
of him from his comrades since the queen denies, and the 
confounded sharp Donna Esteafania, who knows not 
what good fellowship is, watches to prevent us chatting 
with the soldiers ; and yet, they are all gentlemen, good as 
the best old Christian Spaniard.” 

Having studied guard-mounting, she noticed a dere- 
liction from the regular method. 

“The relieved sentry marches away to the end of the 
line. That is correct; and — but, but, you are wrong 


257 


The Specter of the Louvre. 

there,” as if she could be heard. “As I live, they have not 
posted anyone in his stead. They are all going hence. 
I never! This part of the grounds, under the ladies’ 
windows, it is left unprotected.” 

The garden became as silent as the two rooms, 
one each side of her. Lady Combalet might have found 
the cards. If so, she was playing solitaire with them, 
for she did not hasten to commence the game with her 
forlorn companion. She needed the air, yet she closed 
the window. She had the feeling that something — not a 
count — might fly in by it. She went out in the hall. 
There was no usher there, no servant glided in or out. 
She opened the next room door ; no one was in there. She 
examined two or three others; all were unoccupied. 

“How now?” muttered Anne- Charlotte, a little fretted. 
“Has Combalet been so generous as to share her four 
hangers-on all around? She might have given me a 
chance in the distribution, only that loss comes to one 
with too good a reputation. She was afraid I would fire 
up at such a gift as a repudiated lover, even a count. 
Pretty sisters, these companions of mine, to have fun on 
the board and not to ask me if I had no appetite*” 

The empty rooms gave her a chillj with their candles 
unlit and the white beds unruffled. Luckily, to correct 
her wrong impression, she tried one more door. It was a 
double-bedded room, that is, with two beds, and while 
both were occupied by their usual tenants having lounged 
on them, in their dress, in readiness for a call, they had 
gone off into slumber. Another and Lady Combalet, 


258 The Specter of the Louvre. 

stopped in her quest for cards, and in a possible tryst with 
the lord of Soissons, had imitated them, and all four or 
five were indulging in a tolerable but ladylike breathing 
in the luxury of peace, which, in any but the queen’s hand- 
maids, would be called snoring. 

“Traitress !” muttered Anne-Charlotte. “Unless this is 
a trick to stupefy the cardinal’s spy. A nice time to doze 
off when the garden is without any watch.” 

The company was mute, but it was company. She 
wished to linger, and yet this universal somnolency was 
sinister. 

“It was not our frugal Spanish salad supper!” mut- 
tered she, smiling, for she hesitated to laugh. 

Suddenly she shook with terror; she did not wish this 
sound stupor to embrace her. She tottered oiit of the 
room on tiptoe. 

But nothing in the lobby enhanced her absurd alarm; 
only a glint of wan light from the tall windows at each 
end. A speck of varnish on the wall painting presenting 
the semblance of an eye, looking for her to return. 

Over two doors were busts of Carrara marble, yellowed 
by the candle fumes ; a vestal’s and a sage’s spectral. 

On the other side of the hall was a room where dwelt 
two of her most-liked sisters, cherished because they came 
from the south of France, being relatives of the king’s 
guard, Capt. Charost. 

They had another lady with them; these three were 
also in that coma. Their respiration was childlike and 



“She was almost instantly petrified. She perceived a hazy form 
gliding along.” (See page 259) 



259 


The Specter of the Louvre. 

regular; but it affected her as much as the others, being 
so stertorious. It was not normal. This time they were 
seated ; one had a ball of wool in the listless hand, and a 
cat was uncoiling it unreproved. Another had in her 
sudden collapse pushed her finger through a tambour, 
and the third must have been reading to them; the book 
was in her lap and her finger closed up in it. 

With courage Anne-Charlotte walked into the center of 
the room, as though defiant of this spirit of lethargy. It 
was too like the stories of caves into which the adventurer, 
advancing too far, succumbed to mephitic gas. 

“It is a tale of magic,” murmured she. “I have it, for 
it is plain; we were drugged,” for she fancied that her 
head was humming and that a thousand minute specks 
flowed before her and veiled her sight. “It is an at- 
tempt.” 

In palace jargon, an attempt is one against the mon- 
arch’s person. This includes his wife and the rest of the 
family, when there is any. 

She had no such vanity as to believe that she, the insig- 
nificant, was aimed at. 

“The queen is in danger.” 

Her dread and indignation were not freezing, but fiery. 
She bounded to the door like one hasting to rescue. 

But on opening it and pausing to make sure that the 
long passage was not lined with those hoping to profit by 
the intrusion, where doubly men were turned aloof as for- 
bidden by gallantry and loyalty, she was almost instantly 


26o The Specter of the Louvre. 

petrified, like her companions. She perceived a hazy form 
gliding along. 

“The phantom of the palace !” moaned she, recoiling into 
the embrasure, prompted to shut the door on herself, 
either when on the other side, which prudence counseled, 
or on this, which her brave heart commanded. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE PALLID PASSION OF A SHADOWY KING. 

Like the felines, Louis XIII. had a rousing with the 
sinking of night, contrary to normal human nature; then 
he disported in his measured, selfish way. This time he 
dispensed with his ordinary distractions, potent by num- 
ber and wearying by their silliness separately. 

The court minstrels were rehearsing a ballet by the 
king’s own hand, but he tired and left a change to the 
leader’s choice. He substituted an air, as by a fore- 
thought, or private instructions, by the queen’s violin 
player, Boccan. It was one of those love songs simple 
to us, but appearing, like the chants of Rizzio, to have 
had deep effect on the high born of that age. 

Louis found this haunting him and hummed it after 
the musicians had been dismissed. 

Count de Ludes, who had introduced to him Luynes, 
the only favorite who lasted out his favor until his death, 
had the audience. He spoke indifferent matters until the 
king made him more open. Then he revived the affair 
of Sansforain’s death, but this time enlarged not on the 
family grief so much as on the sufferings still unavenged 
of his relict. He spoke so hotly of the fiendish desire 
of Gaston to disfigure so incomparable a beauty as Anne- 
Charlotte’s that the king, as if absently, withheld a minia- 


262 The Pallid Passion. 

ture of her, taken some three years before, and Ludes did 
not ask for it. 

Among the nostrums and infallible panaceas which 
spring up like weeds in all countries where medical science 
is struggling, a good portion is always sent in to the king’s 
doctor. He recommended, after test, a certain drug, 
probably hasheesh, of which, the fable ran, that one of the 
Sultans had owed renewed youth to it. 

Louis tried it after supper and felt better than for six 
years past. 

When Louis felt '‘better,” it is a word cutting both 
ways, for Louis lively realized his father’s sad prophecy, 
said to his Mother Marie: “That wicked boy, if I do 
not live to protect you, will cause you much pain.” 

It was nigh the anniversary of the slaying of Mar- 
shal Ancre, in 1617. He had need, therefore, for an 
antidote to the depression he underwent about this time. 
Not for the crime, or for having deeply wounded his 
mother by this removal of her friend, but because he ever 
wondered how these adventurers died rich and he, the 
sovereign, often lacked a thousand gold pieces. 

He had relieved himself of all the attendants; he zig- 
zagged in the room next that in which he had supped, 
with short, broken steps. A transformation in him would 
have alarmed his congeners. 

Blood, not potable lead, now coursed in his veins ; his 
eyes, hollow as ever, burned up like the gas in the blow- 
pipe; his brows and his mustache bristled with the elec- 
tricity in the air. That love tune tingled in his ears. 


The Pallid Passion. 


263 


He was awaiting a sort of key to a mystery of which 
he held but part of the solution. Some one, who seemed 
to be more friendly to him than to others who should 
have looked after him, saving all love for him and none 
for his brother, his queen, his minister or his nobler yearn- 
ings, was in correspondence with him, very secretly, since 
long. 

He liked this perfect secrecy — it so harmonized with his 
nature. 

It amused him to guess who it might be. He finally be- 
lieved that it was Father Joseph, whom he, by instinct 
rather than by any detectable betrayal of the Capuchins, 
divined to be a kind of rival of Richelieu, without seek- 
ing to usurp his ministerial portfolio. 

Presently, there came scratching on the wall, behind a 
great picture — Apollo exiled to dwell among the shep- 
herds of Admetus ; a freshness in one point struck the king 
on hearing this authorized means of attracting royal at- 
tention ; one of the faces, a shepherdess’, had been freshly 
painted over. 

‘'The head of that Baroness of Sansforain,” said Louis, 
“or is it I can see nothing else since Ludes hammered her 
name into my poor head, and thrust her likeness into my 
hand?” 

Behind this retouched face, well done, the scratching 
was again audible. 

Louis looked around cautiously. In a palace every 
room has not only its ear of the tyrant, but the eyes of 
Argus. 


264 


The Pallid Passion. 


But his curiosity was excited; he was at last to know 
this hidden counselor to whom he was much indebted, 
and though he had in loneliness, which he hoped this un- 
known might be by to break, uttered bis appeal to him, 
never had he shown himself. 

The master of the place knew the trick of this picture — 
a door and one with the panel itself. He touched the 
spring knob and opened a passage mouth, all in darkness. 

But if he had thought that Father Joseph was his corre- 
spondent, he was undeceived. This was a dark, tall man. 
He wore beard like a Spaniard. His maroon velvet 
doublet, black trunks and flat, velvet cap pulled over the 
brow, were all of the mode Anne of Austria tried with 
indifferent success to bring in. 

So impressed was he that this was of his queen’s coun- 
try, that he banished a quick idea that the face was not 
altogether unfamiliar. No doubt it was one of Anne’s 
mysterious envoys, who came from her brother, and this 
was an attempt to tie his hands on the eve of some war 
stroke of Spain’s in which it was not wanted France 
should meddle. 

In this case, Louis was not in danger; the more hostile 
his chief minister was to Philip, the more he himself 
would be cherished. He stepped into the breech and let 
the door slide back into place. But the gloom was not to 
last long. The other ignited a sort of chemical match 
and kindled the wick of a dark lantern. He let the glow 
filter through the air holes at the lantern top, and by this 
the king inspected his guide. 


The Pallid Passion. 265 

As he was not one of those physiognomists who assert 
their ability to identify a person, once met, by the eyes, 
alone unalterable, he was baffled by the countenance; it 
was plastic and pliant, like an actor’s; but had the king 
been informed of the new process by one Dr. Norblin, for 
a false face, he would have taken this for a specimen of the 
art. Had the worthy Norblin, otherwise . unknown to 
fame, discovered collodion? Sufflcient be it for this story 
that he covered the skin of his patients with a fresh pellice, 
adhering by wax; this mask followed all the creases and 
with the edges at eyes, nose and mouth also smeared with 
flesh-colored wax, defied scrutiny, at least by night and in 
this semi-obscurity. 

As much as the king evinced disappointment at not set- 
ting his first surmise down to certainty, the man seemed 
gratified at not being discovered. 

In such a cover the disfigured man might not know 
himself before a looking-glass. 

It seemed to the observer that in the eyes were sor- 
row and craving; for the rest, a mask showed the dis- 
sembler and the voice, a little feigned and a good deal 
fawning, was a courtier’s, that is, a professional dissimu- 
lator’s. 

Such was the tradition of the palace that, on finding 
this stranger was on the proper footing, the king re- 
nounced any apprehension. 

“All is ready !” said this man, in his low, cooing voice. 
“Does it please your majesty to accept my guidance?” 

The monarch had shaken his head to himself in token 


266 


The Pallid Passion. 


that he gave up the attempt to fix his memory, though 
in his mind. He hastened to nod to him. 

The study of his back, since kings are more apt to see 
the cringing form than the front upright, almost revived 
his searching, but again the memory was fleeting. 

*‘Oh, I shall know who he is when he claims his re- 
ward! These parasites always come for the reward!’* 
said Louis, with cynicism of his state. 

Out in the regular ways, the conducted prince won- 
dered a little by what power the usual lingerers, loungers 
and officials on duty had been removed. This considera- 
tion was promising that the affair was excellently man- 
aged, and by one brought up in a palace. As on a ship 
at sea, one has seldom isolation, and least of all, the master. 

The absence of guards, lights, noise, would have un- 
settled another kind of king, but Louis liked quiet, steal- 
thiness and the twilight. 

But he was too proud to put a question. 

At a turn to mount a staircase, the conductor relieved 
him so far as to say : 

‘‘All precautions are taken.” Then, having passed into 
the hall through the ladies-in-attendance’s hall, he stopped 
at the room door where Lady Combalet and Lady Sans- 
forain had been closeted, and said, in a low voice, trained 
like a fine house servant’s : 

“She awaits you here!”* 

With that, shutting a slide so that the holes in the lamp 
chimney were stopped, he vanished, as if supernatural. 


The Pallid Passion. 267 

Louis was left alone, where he had never come but in 
the state in which a king should visit his queen. 

This introduction of him to the forbidden ground — to 
all but him and secrecy was not enjoined on him — was so 
admirably done that he had not felt one plank tremble. 
It was impossible to doubt that the next stage was not as 
easy, though he was left to guide himself, with what would 
be delicacy in any other proceeding. 

He considered that the serenity he had lately enjoyed 
was due to the Fleury flash-in-the-pan. All his annoy- 
ances were out of sight : Chalais, self-exiled, to carry out 
the second act in his conspiracy ; the Duchess of Chevreuse 
in the country; Anjou lurking in Lorraine; Richelieu ab- 
sorbing all the work so that he was free. The queen ! ah, 
where was the queen this night? But he could hope by 
this sample of how his unknown agent had arranged that 
he should declare his passion to Anne-Charlotte, that the 
queen would be hoodwinked, if not stupefied, as it was 
undoubted were her surrounding attendants, and out of all 
interference. 

As he paused on the threshold, with that prudence 
which keeps a cat from risking even its paw in a tempt- 
ing mouse-hole, one of his bright flashes of malice en- 
lightened him. 

“If I foil the instruments in their prank against Anne? 
If I throw aside this folly !” He smiled with intense en- 
joyment. “If, being here, at the queen’s door, I open that 
door and not this? if I declare I am no longer proof to 
her countless charms, her patience, her resignation? and 


268 The Pallid Passion. 

fall at her feet for her to bid me rise and obtain my for- 
giveness T* 

But, instantly, for fertility of fancy produces so much 
that one idea is pushed off by a second, he saw another 
scene. 

It was as logically possible. 

The queen would esteem it an artifice; despise it as 
beneath a sovereign, and repulse him with her native, cold 
pride — morgue — before her austere ladies. 

“And yet,” reasoned the hesitating man, “if she really 
is fond of this newcomer, she will admire me for having 
respected her; and who knows but our relations will im- 
prove ! I must have somebody to love, for the cardinal’s 
oppression makes me hate him, though how can one dis- 
pense with a minister so fond of that detestable writing, 
and writing, and writing? He is absorbing all those 
around me — it is he detaches me, and when I solicit some 
companion, probably this Barradas is put forward by the 
duke! I must have somebody to trust — and who more 
appropriate than the queen?” 

“With her really at my side, we might laugh at these 
plotting politicians, these citizens who suck our money 
bags, and these nobles who revolt — yes^ the highest revolt, 
parliament would do so if it dared, and, above all, Gaston 
is revolting!” He laughed. 

He put his hand boldly to the door just to make his 
temptation be worsted at the most trying moment, and, 
finding it ready to open, deliberately repulsed his inten- 
tion. 


The Pallid Passion. 


269 

“Our lady be praised!” he murmured, and turned to 
depart in the queen’s-suite direction, when something 
ghastly loomed up in the unlit passage. It was like a bat 
crossing the telescope end while one regards a placid 
moonlight. 

He could not deceive himself that it was his dark guide 
returned. 

Nothing could be less similar. 

Louis was superstitious, but after his kind; he could 
mock at one saint and appeal to another; found a church 
and apply to it his winnings at cards ; as his health waned, 
he had become a friend of death, but he was not apt to 
give way to weakness as to visions of the surrounding 
world. 

Always eating heartily, lately excessively, he had no 
returning spirits of those whom he had helped to lose, to 
torment him. 

But this figure, here in the same license as he, un- 
troubled, unchallenged, flitting with the freedom of a born 
tenant, flattered pride of race. It was “the specter of the 
Louvre” whom the royal masters were in particular bound 
to see, before great disaster: Francis before the Pavia 
campaign, Charles IX., to whom it came to kill him with 
remorse; and his own father as well as the previous 
Henry, to warn them of the assassin’s knife ! 

A king may jeer at common folks’ ghosts, but one ap- 
pointed to commune with the royal personages only! 

The form came on, with that noiseless, swimming move- 


270 


The Pallid Passion. 


ment, peculiar to its kind, and which only a woman can 
imitate, when, like Juno, she seems to walk on clouds. 

What, did this offer to him the dregs of the cup of 
which partook his predecessors ? He had thrown away in 
wars the treasure painfully amassed by his sire ; he had 
wasted his time to no purpose; his reign would go down 
in history under the name of his great minister ! He was 
satellite who should have been sun ! This ghost rebuked 
him for this nocturnal digression, no wise inferior in vil- 
lainy to his brother’s enterprise against the same inno- 
cent victim. 

Under that roof his wife’s servants should be in- 
violate ! 

Relying upon his guards, for Treville was to him what 
Desessarts was to the queen, he never carried other arm 
than a dagger to scratch out a blot on paper or cleave the 
ribbon sealed to a letter. 

What had availed his father, in his carriage, when the 
knife reached for his heart? Fate impelled it. 

Besides, steel does not exercise such an unearthly ap- 
parition as this creeping up, without pause or trepida- 
tion ! 

If he could only hear its step, its breathing, or seen life 
in the cast-down eyes, and felt that there was something 
human even in its impulsion towards him ! 

But no! He believed that his fearless father would 
have flinched here — he forgot the prayer of his youth and 
not daring to turn his head, beat with his heel at the 


The Pallid Passion. 


271 

door, to which he backed, not recalling that it was un- 
fastened when he tried it. 

“The palace phantom !” stammered he, stammering 
more than his habit, coming to the same determination as 
Lady Sansforain. 

The phantom came on, its lips moving as if in some curse 
or prayer. 

“White lady ! white fool \’* murmured he, “it is not you 
who needs praying — it is I 

But as it almost could reach his shoulder he smothered 
a shriek and burst in at the door. 

It seemed to him that the apparition had been weeping, 
and that its robe glistened with tears. 

He faced around, setting his back to the door, hoping 
that the terror would pass on. He wanted to hear no mes- 
sage from his ancestors’ tomb — he could go out to the 
abbey, and hear that there! But at the same moment his 
hearing was superseded by his sight awakened. He 
found that he was not alone. The object of his vagary 
was before him in the small compass of that room. 

Anne-Charlotte confronted him; and though she was 
pale and in consternation, he acknowledged with burning 
humiliation that she was less daunted than he. 

Seeing him, too, at this hour where he had no right to 
be, autocrat anywhere else, her indignation was kindled 
and her color returned. 

Ah, what if this were some trick — if she had an as- 
sistant who would literally frighten him into this trap? 

His mood changed like light into day. He opened his 


272 


The Pallid Passion. 


arms, and though the ghost had entered to stay him, he 
was bent on seizing this prize. 

Though one was fair and the other dark, some of the 
resemblance between the brothers was manifest to the lady 
of honor. She recalled only too vividly the embrace of 
Gaston in which she had struggled, and she was about to 
repel this attack, although the surprise was next to as 
keen, with a rude blow, spite of her special education. 

Scorn, disgust, and abhorrence at so foul a scheme, 
and this desecration of the wifely residence, converted her 
into a virago. 

She felt that in defending her honor she was punishing 
a hypocrite, who came without the least inclination of 
herself, to reveal his vileness. 

But even as her hand could have descended on his 
cheek, she let it fall as if paralyzed. This exposure, for 
the fracas must rouse even the narcotized ladies, would 
be a scandal of which she would die and her patroness 
suffer. 

Anne had been kind to her ; she had brought her out of 
obscurity, and given her a place in the enviable court. 
She had transferred to her the Duchess of Chevreuse’s 
position of friendship, and a Queen of France’s friendship 
was priceless. 

So she receded as if frightened at her audacity, and 
reaching the window, where the two flaps were still open, 
she leaped or, rather, fell out. 

‘^By the head of St. Denis !” the king exclaimed, 


The Pallid Passion. 273 

but stifled the cry, “it is not merely a saint — she is a 
martyr !” 

Shrinking from looking out lest he saw a dead thing at 
the foot of the wall on the rose beds, he muttered : 

“That was a real apparition, and it boded death to that 
girl if not to others ! and it is a bad night for me 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


EXPIATION BY DEPUTY. 

It is not maligning Anne-Charlotte to reveal that the 
window, out of which she leaped, played pretty easily on 
its hinges by reason of her frequently being at it to look 
out. And as D’Artagnan found that she was often at that 
place, he did not let his grade, giving him liberty, prevent 
his walking about the garden more often than strict duty 
led him. 

On this evening, he should have been one of the first 
post but, to the general amaze, the sentries were called 
off to fall in with those who should have replaced them, 
and all' were marched back to be dismissed together. 

“Retiring the outposts?” mused our tyro, deliberating 
while his comrades were delighted at the unlooked-for 
vacation. “This is a new experience !” 

The other young gentlemen sat down to carouse or at 
pastimes, for it was a happy-go-lucky, inconsiderate race, 

“In this way the guards would be withdrawn,” he pon- 
dered, “if Lord Richelieu wished to renew his addresses 
to her majesty; or the King of Spain wished to speak pri- 
vately with his sister; or that jack-in-the-box, Anjou, 
wished to insinuate that runagate, Chalais, into the place 
by way of the queen as a fellow conspirator. Who would 
do it but by the king’s orders, but what on earth and 
the waters around it, does the king here with our corps? 


Expiation by Deputy. 275 

Desessarts and Guitaut do not look for orders in that 
quarter !” 

The young man did not ruffle the air by complaining or 
even questioning; he was one who inquired silently by 
his eyes and ears. All his reasonings came to one issue 
and that was blocked solidly; who would want to roam in 
this region unchallenged — unseen, unsuspected, even if 
possible, but the master? All the popular reports pointed 
at the king’s disposition of mind for seeking solace in 
the flight of Chalais; evidently the troubles of that poor 
Baroness of Sansforain were to be recommenced. 

“Death to my hopes !” thought the Gascon, “since there 
is nobody left to watch over our forsaken queen but Louis 
D’Artagnan. Why, this Louis will mount guard all by 
himself !” 

Since the others were dicing, there was no opposition 
to his returning to the scene. 

All were forbidden the place, so he was sure that he 
would not meet many promenaders. 

The night was serene, but a little oppressive with sultri- 
ness ; along the ground haze hovered, and the leaves glis- 
tened faintly with dew. The building front looked dismal ; 
at such lonesome times the tragedies were remembered, 
not the rejoicings, the festivals and the galas. 

The solitary saunterer felt the gloom pile upon his 
shoulders; the gardens seemed too completely deserted. 
He longed for the sentinels’ challenge and their “All’s 
well !” 

The flowery emanations seemed less pleasing and were 


276 Expiation by Deputy. 

sleep-giving ; even the reptiles, which haunted the spots 
where birds ate the seeds by day, moved with oily undula- 
tions and irritatingly faint cracklings of their scales. 

It was only too easy to imagine all distortions of the 
shadows in the copses, and the cut trees assumed even 
more fantastical shapes than designed. The water drip- 
ping into the basins sounded disagreeably, and the foun- 
tain jets sluggishly fell back, like blood in a surgeon’s 
basin. 

The young man, not fond of loneliness, felt inclined to 
draw his sword and cut off the peony heads or fly at 
those evanescent figures and bid them ‘‘Stand and discover 
yourselves !” 

Amid the masses of ivy and bine, the shrouded statues 
loomed like nymphs entangled in the vines or, if prone, 
the half-hidden victims of murderers, hastily escaped. 

Not a light up at the windows, where customary. 

Somehow he thought of this palace where security was 
not. 

Its lord abandoned it as if unsafe; at this door, to his 
knowledge, a daring hand had strewn the horse-irons; 
why not the same infernal malignant enter here and 
sprinkle some other engine of regicide for the queen’s 
injury? 

Still that unwonted silence up at the windows ; he never 
expected the queen’s foreign attendants to play the ogling 
donnas on the balcony, but the native charmers often 
brightened up the openings ; as for the latest, he delighted 


Expiation by Deputy. 277 

to see Lady Sansforain enframed in the curtains and peep- 
ing out — was it for her deliverer? 

But what use is a deliverer where all is ease and com- 
fort? This void, if not accidental and natural, was to 
the profit of whom? 

Yet who should have his way facilitated? The king 
need not traverse the grounds when he might, with his 
escort, cross through the palace. 

What if the king, fond of quiet and solitude, should 
prefer the hushed gardens for a visit to his queen? 

In that case he, here, without orders and in the teeth 
of them, might cross his path. 

Now what does a man do, a soldier, a courtier, when 
he crosses his king’s path? 

“What do you do?” he questioned, drolly, a melancholy 
Pan with one horn fractured, for a merry maid having 
hung her pall-mall bat upon it. “Use your tact, for if he 
does not wish to be seen, you should turn away and make 
off quicker and quicker! If you guess his errand and it 
is not commendable, you increase your pace.” 

Now pondering over the royal characteristics, D’Artag- 
nan found himself humming an old ballad about the death 
of Marshal Luynes ; this murderer-in-ordinary to the 
young King Louis died at a siege of fever ingloriously. 

^‘Montlaur in ashes lies, and all Garonne is free I 

Yet rise no joyous cries, though Luynes is dead, we see!” 

“Bah !” muttered the self-chosen scout, halting, “it must 
be the local spirit, the genus loci, as Aramis says, for here 


278 Expiation by Deputy. 

I stand where Luynes and his pack of ruffians, lineal an- 
cestors of Gaston’s bullies, massacred that infamous Mar- 
shal Ancre!” 

Indeed, he was by the spot, called Lover’s Bridge, al- 
though the bridge, in question, a flying one, had been taken 
away. Fable said that it led from the queen’s apartments 
so that Ancre-Concini, her minister, could confer on their 
plots upon the king’s peace or purse — since the Italian died 
enormously rich. It was by Dormant Bridge that the ac- 
tual crime was committed, though blood was spilled here 
in connection. Luynes claimed that he did it because the 
young king “willed” that he should avenge his father, 
so they hewed the favorite like Agg. 

The dense shrubbery was opaque to blackness in its 
thickness. The gravel paths showed up bluish with the 
refuse from the brick kilns. To the searcher’s surprise, 
not to his intimidation, he spied a figure, muffled up to no 
definite form, on the walk, and outlined by the boxwood 
copse. If it had not been leisurely moving, he might 
have doubted it had life. Its gown was without hood, but 
that interesting apparition was a vulgar one, haunting the 
old city. 

He had left off his spurs. He could advance quietly, 
not continuing his ballad. It was either a short man or a 
tallish woman; in the only opening in the gown, the eyes 
were bared, but they did not have the phosphoric glow at- 
tributed to specters. 

The ghost, partial to the Louvre, according to barrack- 
room tales, was not bulky, darksome and bashful like this, 


Expiation by Deputy. 279 

but loved to parade with an audience to admire it or be 
awed. 

But after a fourth stride, this figure seemed about to 
collapse and, indeed, sank to the ground. It should have 
sunk altogether, but it stopped halfway in this orthodox 
ghostly proceeding. 

He rushed forward, lest it vanished under his eagerly 
dashed-forth hand. 

‘‘Stop!” cried he. 

But the form had only bent; it was in the attitude of 
prayer; probably the hands were clasped and both knees 
on the ground. 

It looked at the first as if he had caught a depredator 
who sued for mercy; but a courtly perfume permeated 
the coarse mantle and he was ready to swear that those 
unseen hands were stylish, as the prayer would be in a 
dulcet voice. 

“Who is this? What do you here — ^here?” asked he, 
much as a priest would address an intruder found in the 
close hours in a church. “Do you take the Italian garden 
for a burying place of the Carthusians ?” 

Whether the stranger was reassured by the slightly 
jesting accent or by the accent itself, or admitted that his 
military aspect entitled him to be authoritative, she rose. 
It was no ghost, but a woman, and by her carriage, lady- 
like enough, to be strayed out of the queen’s rooms. 

But the Gascon did not know her yet as attached to the 
palace. 


28 o Expiation by Deputy. 

“Sir, I am widow of Lord Albert Luynes, and I am 
praying here with a supplication for his soul !” 

“The mercy you are 

The intermarriages so complicated family names that 
it took a geneologist to keep the accounts, but still this 
was a celebrity. The widow of the constable of France, 
then, was Lady Chevreuse. 

Marie Rohan Montbazon ; who wedded the first favorite, 
waited but the year of mourning to marry again. This 
time, it was a magnificent noble who startled by such 
extravagant feats as having twenty carriages built so that 
he might choose the easiest one ! Claude Lorraine, Duke 
of Chevreuse, afterwards Prince of Joinville, was twice 
her age, not an Adonis, but a man of sense, wit and cool- 
ness in danger. 

But she had the mania for intrigue and became the in- 
timate friend of the new queen, apparently just to break 
up the royal household while cementing the interests of 
her families. 

The facts revived to D’Artagnan; he still thought it 
strange that this woman who married swiftly and had no 
reputation as a mourner, should be weeping over her first 
husband’s memory or his victim’s death-place. 

He felt disposed to explain why he interrupted the sol- 
emn interlude, it not occurring to him that the guards had 
been retired on purpose to let the forbidden lady revisit 
this saddening scene. 

He had the hardness to remind her, with stern military 
directness, that her name was no longer on the list at the 


Expiation by Deputy. 281 

gateways of persons allowed entrance into the precincts. 
In fact, she was expressly excluded. 

“Your grace will pardon a young officer, whose sole way 
to raising is by faithfulness to his orders,” apologized he, 
“but as the night air is malarious and such appeasing of 
the manes is not according to rules, I must see you to the 
gate. Any preference for one or another ?” 

c 

She darted at him one of those looks which had dis- 
quieted much less inflammable hearts than the adventurer’s, 
but, somehow, perhaps because according to mathematics 
one body cannot occupy the place of another, his heart 
did not budge. He offered his arm. crooked and stiff as 
a wooden one. Stiffly, as a veteran, he marched her off. 

At the gate not the slightest attention was paid to her ; 
who cares to look twice at a soldier ushering his laundry 
woman under a cloak, hiding her basket of linen and her 
nose? One does not enter without being challenged — un- 
less she were the exception — but it is different in going 
out. 

The all-conquering duchess, piqued by this stolidity, 
had not murmured on the compulsory promenade, and 
acted as if she had fulfilled all her mission in life by her 
pious deed. She did not even say good-night to her vol- 
unteer escort. Her “Thanks, young sir !” was also spoken 
as to an automaton. 

The guardsman ought to have been obliged to her, for 
it was no recommendation for him to have been civil to the 
banished queen’s confidante whom Louis hated, and a lit- 


282 Expiation by Deputy. 

tie too often recalled as the remnant of that “King” 
Luynes. 

“It is lucky/’ he condoled himself, “that I am not the 
man to turn back on my road, for I have already set up 
several stumbling blocks. Who but I, with my reprehen- 
sible blundering, would have made a foe of the next to the 
crown ? Chalais I have offended, though he is no obstacle 
just now; and here I set all the swarm of hornets against 
me by expelling the Chevreuse duchess from the gardens 
of her Armida. 

“And may I have not spoiled a medianoche (midnight 
supper) in the queen’s native mode? Why frustrate her 
friend’s entrance here? Perhaps all this was to facilitate 
their meeting! Bah! my sire always inculcated that I 
should act for the king, and to bring Chevreuse and Aus- 
tria into touch is very like showing the serpent the tree 
to which Eve is daily coming to see how the fruit is “ripen- 
mg. 

After this episode, the gardens became more melan- 
choly. 

The silence was so perfect as to fill his ears with ting- 
ling as if voices were muttering all but comprehensible. 
The odor of the plants suggested the flower pots with 
which the Gastonets had been bombarded, for somehow 
he began to think of them. 

What if the duchess dared the prohibition to scout for 
an inroad? 

“It is the favoring circumstances for them ! They were 
afraid that the Queen’s Guards would make a bold front 


Expiation by Deputy. 283 

that they had us dismissed into the dark. My self-im- 
posed patrol is already productive! I will maintain it. 
Who knows but a sanctimonious devotee will slip in to tell 
his beads over a place of murder? Only, may his rosary 
be a bandolier and the beads bullets 

He itched to do something under his lady-love’s win- 
dows again. But had she seen his gallanting the cloaked 
duchess out of the palace bounds? 

He looked up. Suddenly, like a foreboding, his heart 
dilated. He spied a slightly moving profile on the garden 
wall. It was too large for a cat, and yet only a cat would 
be presumed to risk where the top ought to be strewn 
with those natural caltrops called shards and bottle ends. 

It was human, though bent double. 

It was also feminine, but the discoverer had no idea 
that it was the irrepressible duchess returned for ingress 
at another point ! 

“This visitress is not posted up at the gates! Unless 
she were a heroine, she would not clamber over the stones 
of the old wall that defended the Burgundians and Eng- 
lish ! What the deuce is it — a servant practicing to come 
out as a rope dancer when she leaves domestic service ?” 

He could not understand how a climber in petticoats, 
many and thick as in days when distrustful persons car- 
ried their wardrobe on them, reached that height. 

He could not see through four foot of rubble wall. But 
if he had that power he would have seen that the other 
approach was not sheer as on this side. 

The old tile grounds had been delved for clay and the 


284 Expiation by Deputy. 

rejected stuff had been heaped up at a distance from the 
furnaces. This distance was bounded by the Louvre wall, 
and as the mass had been undermined by the wall drip, in 
time all had become a leaning tower, finally resting against 
the stone. Thus to one who went around and essayed to 
mount to the coping, it was easy as going up the recog- 
nized Alpine ascents adjoining the hotels. 

Inside the grounds, nothing of this was visible and it 
had aroused no apprehensions. But the habitual pail of 
mortar and the broken pots and bottles of which he had 
thought, had been omitted in this spot where the creature 
imitated Mahomet’s coffin in being neither in the sky nor 
on the earth. 

‘T spy!” cried he, not too loudly, as he feared that too 
sudden an alarm might precipitate her into his arms. 

Moreover, he had believed that Tacit was an ally to 
Somnus, who presided over the doings. 

At his alarm, a laugh responded; husky, not very wom- 
anly, amused. The discovered one had found something 
funny in the discovery or what was more irritating to the 
discoverer, in him. 

As this cool reception of his kindly challenge denoted 
a person not likely to fall off with surprise or terror, it 
was useless to draw his sword and hold it up for her to 
impale herself. 

So, plucking his side knife out of its case, and clicking 
it with his thumb nail so that the sound was not unlike 
a pistol going on cock, he levelled its blade at the figure. 

^^Hola! vaya!” said he, using his native tongue in the 


Expiation by Deputy. 285 

crisis and in his anger at being slighted, ‘‘come down, 
you ! or I shall bring you down 

“Better bring me a pillow of down ! my little com- 
patriot 

“Phew ! it is Spanish !” muttered the guardsman, lower- 
ing his sham pistol. “I betrayed myself with the exotic 
expletives ! The interjection is an awful traitor, it lets 
one out who speaks a language otherwise perfectly.’^ 

The Gascon and the Spanish are like neighbors when 
anyone tries to part them when quarreling. He could do 
no less than reply in the stranger’s tongue, especially as 
this kept this unusual dialogue secret to any eavesdrop- 
pers. 

“I do not admit that I am a compatriot, but I do re- 
peat that I must bring you down in my arms if not with 
firearms, seeing that you are a dame!” 

“You had better bring me the gardener’s ladder, for I 
am laden and must tip the balance at two hundred 
pounds I” was the alarming rejoinder. “There ought to 
be one over there, under the ople tree. The gardener 
has a spite against us ladies, I do a-vouch, for he leaves it 
in a fresh place each day to break every bone in the body 
of us poor ladies!” 

“The gardener’s ladder? — she is a frequenter here; 
one of the establishment, then!” thought D’Artagnan. 
“What a pity the queen’s home and homely brigade are 
so much out of the same cask.” 

“No less ! and a little one as well as the long one! The 
latter for a choice because of my load!” 


286 Expiation by Deputy. 

‘‘Load ! What is she loading up with on top of a wall?” 

“And mind how you stand under, for I warn you, my 
pert Gascon, that I am the stout body of the queen’s cor- 
tege, and it is a strong mule that gets me over the 
ground !” 

Although the voice continued harsh, it had a merry 
ring, and D’Artagnan did not have to test his memory to 
place this voice under its owner’s name, at last. 

“Donna Estefania!” cried he; and wondering that this 
jolly woman by being exalted had become amiable, out of 
being to him the churliest and most forbidding of all the 
queen’s Spanish defenders. 

He was touching firm ground at last after wading. 

To abridge the distance between them, after she so gayly 
broke the ice, he hastened to grope about and spurn the 
grass till he found the ladder by nearly stumbling over it. 

So confident was he that the dame of weight, without 
her load, still a mystery, would not vanish, that he did not 
once look back. Finding the ladder, he raised it with dif- 
ficulty, since he had struck the bigger, and he carried it 
to the spot. Its strength was yet to be tested, but it was 
long enough. 

It jutted above the cornice, in fact, inducing the woman 
still jokingly to remark: 

“Faith of my patron ! you could, with this, regulate the 
hands of the clock in the tower.” 

D’Artagnan was naturally delicate, but he also remerm 
bered that a Queen of Spain — and logically her attendants 


Expiation by Deputy. 287 

in some degree — is without lower limbs, so, planting him- 
self with his back to the ladder he called out : 

'“Fly down, please 

On this, whether the woman tried the means of com- 
munication in doubt about her wings or arms being fit, a 
mass slid down the wooden rectangle and rolled over the 
cross-bars and fetched up against the guardsman with a 
bump, which deprived him of sensation, though it was 
soft. 

At his feet stopped the mass. It was a large sack filled 
to bursting and, indeed, slightly exuding by its imper- 
fectly tied mouth sundry grasses, herbs and plants. This 
nocturnal strayer on the walls was then a botanical col- 
lector. 

But while he was staring, and modestly but cleverly tak- 
ing advantage of his confusion, another round body de- 
scended likewise and adroitly landed on the other side of 
him, resting momentarily in a balloon of black taffety and 
petticoats, and rising to discover her face in a hooded cape. 

The skin was swarthy as a gypsy’s ; the eyes were light 
and he had taken all Spanish eyes to be black; but the 
mouth, though plump and moist, extended widely so as 
to have admitted a saucer ; the cheeks were creased as with 
black lines ; altogether not inviting, as seen by night ; what 
a fright by day. But she seemed to make up for being a 
horror by mirthful expression and, thank heaven, many 
a grim mouth can grin to make you laugh, and the hol- 
lowed eyes are cups of drollery. 


288 


Expiation by Deputy. 

'‘You are a true cahallero” (gentleman) cried her 
husky, yet kindly, voice. 

“Why, you Spanish are superb!” said he; “if I were 
not a Gascon I would like to be one.” 

Nothing more than this compliment was needed to con- 
quer the affections of this dame, whom he had considered 
the most austere and ascetic of Anne’s tiring women, in 
both senses of the word. 

“Jove! after all, ‘beldame’ was derived from helle-dame 
or I am a sinner !” He saluted and, in a merry vein, as 
there Was surely nothing political or treacherous in this 
episode, pursued : 

“At your feet, donna, the service of your true squire, 
Don Luis of Artagana !” he “Spanished” his name for the 
tone, “but what in the name of all that is frisky, are you, 
Donna Estefania, doing a-top of the garden wall?” 

“Getting over it — you do not suppose that on that ma- 
sonry grows and thrives the material for the favorite 
salads for our mistress, do you?” 

“Oh, you have salad herbs there?” and he indicated the 
bag. 

“And in quantity, too! Ah, it is a good air for pot 
herbs, this of Paris !” 

The young man made a contemptuous hiss. 

“What, you sneer at salad and you, a Spaniard?” 

“You know that I have the honor to be a Gascon; and 
the oak tree of Gascony was old when the Spanish chest- 
nut was still in the shell !” and he twirled his mustache, 
Joftily. 


Expiation by Deputy. 289 

The lady did not flare up at the slur. 

“Good! You ought to know that in the first place, 
for salad, we must have oil!” 

“Like that which lubricates your tongue ! Go on !” 

“And pepper, red and black, which are medicines.” 

“I do not object to pepper.” 

“To follow which should be vinegar, the counteragent, 
and such sprouts of the vegetable kingdom as mint, sour- 
grass, hips and haws, borage, spring onions, and, speaking 
of the wall, the buds of wallflowers with their redolent, 
delicious smack!” 

“Oh, they perfume the queen’s salad with wallflower 
buds, now ?” stammered the pupil, his head wavering with 
the enumeration. 

“It is undeniable. It is written so in 'The Indispensable 
Cook’s Oracle’ by the bishop of Obispo’s chef.” 

“In fact, you have been simply gathering herbs for the 
queen’s salad — at this hour?” 

“At this — it is the dew hour, saving your reverence !” 

“So, the queen sups at midnight ?” 

“It is our custom and approved by your physicians, for 
a light repast with pleasant chat at midnight fortifies the 
system against melancholy when one is alone!” 

“I am ready with my faith, like a new convert, but it 
is hard to allow the idea that all those herbs came off that 
wall !” 

“Oh, no,” said Donna Estefania, laughing; “I was over 
in the field there, which is to be a garden some day; 


290 


Expiation by Deputy. 

meanwhile, the wild things occupy it, and there is good 
store of what I sought!’' 

“But the ladder not being raised and there being, I 
judge, none on the farther side, how without wings, which 
I do not see, did you cross the barrier?” 

“Oh, I walked out as plain as the day, with my bag un- 
der my mantle. I filled it in the field and sat on the wall, 
awaiting the soldier ‘on sentry-go’ to come along and do 
for me the kindness with the ladder I owe to your lord- 
ship 1” 

“There,” said the guardsman ; “I have it 1 The cap- 
tain was wondering what progress the soldiers are making 
in speaking Spanish! It is taught them over a mouthful 
of salad by the queen’s, so obliging, ladies-in-waiting!” 

“You are on the right ground,” said the mirthful 
duenna, impatiently. 

“But yet I do not understand how with that load you 
reached the top there !” 

“No believing without seeing. Just run up the rounds 
and see why I and my bag required no ladder !” 

“Wait!” and he paused with one foot on the bottom 
rung. “I suppose the queen is without company, as usual, 
that she has so meager a spread as salad?” 

Estefania looked at him and closed one eye. 

“One must not be taken unawares, you know. We 
Spanish are hospitable ! There is always a boiled egg, 
a roast fowl and a cut of sausage in the larder, though — 
I fear not to say it, since you are not French ! — your mas- 
ter is a curmudgeon ! I do not care who he has had put 


Expiation by Deputy. 291 

in prison or whom he sends to the block, but, by all the 
martyrs, he will not be forgiven who treats a really beau- 
tiful lady like Queen Anne with shyness and negligence 
bordering on insult!” 

“Amen 1” said the gallant. 

Then to set his doubt at rest, he mounted the ladder. 

“I suppose I must carry my gallantry so far as to carry 
that huge parcel of hers into the apartments,” grumbled 
he. 

He reached the cornice without halt and in a glance saw 
that the pile of refuse earth made the ascent of infinite 
ease. 

“Why, the proverbial mule loaded with silver which 
can enter any fortress would not balk at that!” said he. 
“What dolts! Well, this is a castle as poorly walled in as 
guarded ! You were right,” added he, turning his head, 

“a snowball could be rolled up here by a boy 

Halloa !” 

Estefania and her precious herbs had disappeared. 

“Hang the jade! I don’t believe her tale now — unless 
it is a little expanded! She was not gathering edible 
herbs, that old hag! She is a Medea, as they say, who 
plucks deadly weeds to send people to sleep or even into 
the unwaking slumber !” 

He mounted the wall itself to see if she were threading 
the paths, but she was gone in the vistas. 

To add to his provoked temper, he had sprung up too 
incautiously from the ladder. Spurned, it had, like a liv- 
ing thing discarded, moved a little at the first, then more, 


292 


Expiation by Deputy. 


and soon, till as he looked for it, it leaped along the wall 
sidewise and reached the ground. 

“If I ever heard a chuckle, I should believe that witch 
shoved that ladder aside ! What a night for losing a foot- 
ing r 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

IN WHICH THE PALACE PHANTOMS FAVOR OUR HERO 
WITH A PEEP. 

‘Tf I were answerable for the queen’s safety,” mused 
D’Artagnan, reflecting, ‘T should not allow this approach 
to be my reproach — for a regiment could march up that 
hill ten abreast! I must let the captain know about this 
oversight and stop herb gathering.” 

He was about to descend, leisurely, since he had no 
hope of finding the playful Spanish woman within hail, 
when the smoothness of the road wall tempted him to 
make his engineering report complete. 

‘Tf I had not learned the footing of a goat in our moun- 
tains, I could not walk the narrow edge of nothing — so 
that this wide way is as the king’s main road ! But where 
did she pick up wallflowers here? The coping stones are 
admirably joined and a wild onion could not shoot out 
in such imperceptible cracks!” 

He took a few steps and found it easy — with his head 
one which nothing like a gulf each side dazed. 

“One could reach the palace window and peer in — I 
could see what goes to the mixing of the queen’s salad ! I 
believe that she will have a guest with whom she will dis- 
cuss other things than sorrel, radishes and eglantine 
buds !” 

The wall ended at a leaded roof; to one side was the 


294 


Palace Phantoms. 


watch-tower in the belfry of which was that not-over- 
worked bell, rung only on the birth of a king or his death, 
or a royal birthday. 

On the other hand was the broad gutter along the dor- 
mitories. 

“Nothing like the actual deed,’’ said he; “I can report 
that a man in boots could enter the queen’s apartments 
with ease as on the' parapet of the new bridge!” 

In truth, it was even less hazardous than the bridge, 
when Anjou and his tribe pushed the citizens to the wall 
and almost over into the river in their “rushes” like mad 
bulls. 

“Ah ! what a place to meet the duke coming out of the 
palace on this wall I It would be single combat, then, out 
of which there would pass but one ! No retreating, no 
sidling — face to face — ah!” with relish, “that I saw him 
now !” 

But his way was unimpeded. 

“Blessings on him who withdrew the sentries,” went on 
he, always chatting to himself, but not audibly just now, 
“for on this height, profiled against the sky, I would offer 
a mark which would be riddled !” 

Arrived at the wall end, he stepped on “the leads,” as 
the metal roofing by the jutting gutter was called. The 
sheets being smooth, and the joints soldered, his step was 
more uncertain than on the stone. He stood by a win- 
dow. A kind of panic seized him or rather a return of the 
misgiving which the abnormal state of things occasioned. 

He did not want to be seen. Something moved in the 


Palace Phantoms. 295 

garden; it might be Donna Estefania, but this time he 
wished to play the trick upon her of disappearing. 

The window offered no opposition to a man with a 
knife to shoot back the spring. He stepped inside and 
was in the mezzanine corridor. 

A half- winding stair led up to the queen’s ladies’ 
rooms. 

All at once he was sure that the place beneath him was 
not untenanted. 

“It’s that herb gatherer!” muttered he, “to jump out 
and cry : ‘War to the Spanish 1’ would be amusing to me, 
but, on second thoughts, it would be death to her, that is, 
to me, also, since I have no business to shout in the queen’s 
lodgings 1” 

So he drew back into the recess at the corner, and 
draped the window curtains about him. 

But these were not the footsteps of the pursy, tiring 
woman. If so, she must have dropped her burden and 
changed into felt slippers. The almost inaudible steps 
were grisly. Then he beheld in the very dim light out 
of the starlit sky, a shape transmitting cold horror: A 
female face, glowing with a dull flame apparently growing 
and evaporating, exactly like the ever-burning bodies of 
the condemned dead in the pit. Over the robe glistened 
like dew, which did not quench the torment, innumerable 
tears ; the sinner condemned to walk at midnight had use- 
lessly poured these tokens of repentance and suffering. 
On the shoulders, where military officers wore epaulets, 
two blanched death heads were set. 


Palace Phantoms. 


296 

In short, it was the identical figure which Louis the 
king had received as the white lady of the Louvre, and 
Anne-Charlotte, spite of her stout heart had also yielded 
into taking for supernatural. 

^‘The specter of the palace!” muttered D’Artagnan, 
shrinking up as one does to let the dead be borne by in a 
narrow passage. 

He caught a glimpse of the face; it was beauteous 
though sad, queenlike, worthy to haunt a palace; but 
above all there was nothing of the like in his knowledge 
of that fleeting complexion of a white flame — shimmering 
like the fumes off melted mercury. 

He forgot he had a sword by his side — that he had 
hands — all he had of existence was his sight to watch this 
apparition float by and ascend the stairs. Instead of sul- 
phur, he could have sworn that the perfume accompany- 
ing this vision was one recently inhaled. He was too 
flustered to remember that the like had been with Lady 
Chevreuse and not among Estefania’s bag of herbs. 

The figure had gone up to the next floor, when he was 
roused from his inertness by a noise — it was the door 
slammed by the king to cut off the phantom’s pursuit. 

This was significant, and the guardsman was about to 
dart up in chase, but, instantly, outside the window by 
which he had entered, he saw white gleaming. 

He turned that way and, leaning out, saw within a few 
feet a woman hanging by the window jamb, oscillating, 
her hands insecure, about to fall. 

But at his step thither something rolled under his foot 


Palace Phantoms. 


297 


and burst with a slight explosion. He looked down as if 
the floor were undermined. Another and another of these 
objects startled him, shining. 

He stooped and picked one up : it was a “tear,” that is, 
a bead, of glass, and called “Prince Rupert’s drops,” at 
a later period. 

“A tear? Oh, oh !” for he recalled that the robes of the 
passerby was studded with such ornaments. “A glass 
tear? Oh, this vision was substantial, if no more than 
glass !” 

But a convulsive sob without, redirected his attention 
on the woman hanging out of the casement. At this sec- 
ond look, he had no doubt. 

“The lady of Sansforain!” murmured he. 

He clapped his hand to his side with pain and appre- 
hension. 

“Is it she played the ghost? She is like to do it in ear- 
nest if she falls! Hold there!” 

To hesitate was to let her be destroyed. 

Already her grasp had relaxed. Her nails broke and 
her fingers yielded. He scrambled through his window, 
but his impetus was too strong — he slipped on the lead 
and only stayed himself in the deep gutter. He fell, but 
as it was in the hollow, he caught hold at a venture of one 
of the cross-bars. They prevented the iron trough bul- 
ging when too full. 

This engaged his right hand, and while thus overhang- 
ing the edge, he grasped with the other at the woman fly- 
ing in a whirl by him. 


Palace Phantoms. 


298 

He could not stop her, but this interception broke the 
otherwise fatal fall. In a moment he had imitated her, but 
fell more carefully. 

He lifted her up in his arms. 

‘‘The horror of it!” gasped she. 

“Yes — you saw the ghost?” 

“I saw him.” 

“Him? Why, I wager it was a woman — you know — 

Donna Estef ” Then, a fresh and more compatible 

idea seizing him at memory of the Duchess of Chev- 
reuse’s talent for tricks, he added : “It was Lady Chev- 
reuse going to see the queen. Don’t be frightened.” 

“Frightened?” repeated she, with great scorn. “It was 
the king.” 

She wrenched her hands away from him and buried 
her face in them. Her cheeks were so hot that they 
scorched the palms, as if she had glided down a cord 
holding it with all her force. 

“The king?” Oh, had the king played the part of the 
palace specter for — what end?” 

She could not reply, for she had swooned on a garden 
bench. 

He appreciated all the perils of his predicament. It 
was the king’s palace — one does not fight with his mas- 
ter for a boon. He lifted up her body as if it were a 
child’s. 

“No alarm,” thought he, with all his wariness; “no 
noise. To such lowness and vileness, keen wit.” 

He bore her away to that petty guardhouse in the wall 


Palace Phantoms. 


299 


where had been likewise transported the remains of Mar- 
shal Ancre, first object of Louis XIII. ’s vindictive temper. 

“This silence will be broken awfully/’ thought the 
young soldier, when, as though he invoked the spirit 
deemed to be in a blessed bell, the bell of the Louvre 
knelled. 

The three or four soldiers in the watch house, enjoined 
to keep within doors, rushed out on seeing with him his 
charge. 

“It is one of the queen’s ladies of honor,” said he. 
“Lady Sansforain. She was out picking herbs with 
Donna Estefania when she fell over a ladder in the grass, 
and I found her swooned.” 

“Yes, we saw the Spanish ogress,” returned one of the 
guards. “With her big sack, like a fury bearing a collec- 
tion of souls into purgatory.” 

“She is deeply set in the faint,” said the other. “Is it a 
viper bit her?” 

“I think,” replied the subaltern, “that there was a snake 
in the grass that frightened her. But, hark! what rang 
that bell? Out and stand guard! I annul, as your offi- 
cer, the order to keep out.” 


CHAPTER XXV. 


AND THE KING IS ACCLAIMED AS A LOVING SPOUSE. 

With the retreat of King Louis out of the route of the 
white lady, the latter would have blundered badly if 
she did not reach the queen’s private rooms by a well- 
known passage. 

The queen risked all by letting her in by a secret 
panel, in full trust to her chosen companions. 

She welcomed her old friend, the duchess, as soon as 
the latter had thrown off the terrifying disguise and re- 
moved her skin mask. 

They were interrupted in the conversation, though of 
vital importance, by the noise of Lady Sansforain’s fall. 
Taking this to be nothing to concern her, Lady Chev- 
reuse rapidly related how she had been put back by 
D’Artagnan in her first essay to reach her goal. Then her 
disguise covered with the mantle and compelled to skirt 
the outside of the walls, she had regained the easy ap- 
proach from the near gardens. But here again the 
guardsman had waylaid her. But for her uncommon skill 
in personating Donna Estefania, but giving her a kindlier 
disposition, she eluded that incorruptible watchdog. 

On entering the grounds and leaving him upon the walb 
harmless, she hoped, she affixed the mask, dressed herself 
as the ghost and invaded the palace. 

Luckily, between the planner of the king’s excursion, 


301 


A Loving Spouse. 

who had had the guards removed, and the queen, having 
had her suspicious ladies drugged at supper, the rest was 
easy. 

But the booming of the bell, rousing up all in and out of 
the secret of something being afoot, dispelled the hope of 
having their conversation out. 

Lady Chevreuse had barely time to tell that the great 
conspiracy was in course. Chalais only waited for a token 
that he could enter into the last bond making with the 
Austrian envoy, that token to be from the queen. She 
engaged Spain thereby. 

Anne quickly thrust upon her confidante a small, oblong 
packet. 

“It is my answer,” said she; “it is a pack of tarots*' 
(fortune-telling cards). Laisques could read by the pe- 
culiar arrangement and certain ticks in the ornaments. It 
was a book among the chiefs. 

Lady Chevreuse could not even see the cards, for at this 
juncture Bertin, a valet trusted, hurried in with a blanched 
face. 

“The king!” he pantomimed better than his suppressed 
and terrified voice. 

The valet led the prohibited lady out, and she was 
soon on the way from Paris. 

It was the time when Louis, recovering from the shock 
of the young lady throwing herself out of his embrace, and 
that of the phantom betokening evil to his race, hesitated 
between natural desire to help the fallen and a more selfish 
one not to publish his intrusion. 


302. 


A Loving Spouse. 


Concluding to descend to the garden, he opened the 
door just as Lady Chevreuse and the valet crossed the 
hall to issue by a hidden way. 

Too alarmed to see distinctly, he was seized again with 
the panic. He thought that the phantom was retracing 
his steps to make sure of its prey, and, uttering a howl 
as the bell again tolled, he sank in one of his epileptic fits 
on the floor. 

The palace was in an uproar. Lights flashed on all 
sides as simultaneously as if they had been ignited by the 
one source. 

On hearing the king’s howl, like a wolf’s despairing in 
a trap, Anne, herself shaking with trepidation, had a 
splendid hint from her good angel. She rushed out of 
her rooms and to the one indicated by a crowd at the 
door. 

Lady Chevreuse had been seen in her swift escape. 
And the cry that the white lady was roaming was circu- 
lating widely. 

Anne dashed into the room where none now thought of 
following her. 

She guessed that the king had lost his senses by the 
apparition. She felt, with him, that no king could survive 
the ridicule of being terrified by a deception like that. 

She shut the door firmly. She went to the window 
and looked out. The garden was like at a gala — torches 
crossed and recrossed, and illuminated the whole. Some 
firearms were pointed at her, and shouts ascended. They 
took her for the white queen. It was no longer a jest. 



“The palace was in an uproar. Lights flashed on all sides as simul- 
taneously as if they had been ignited by the one source.” 

(See page 302) 






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A Loving Spouse. 303 

But, at a little distance, a soldier at a guardhouse door 
suddenly cried out: 

“Are you blind? Down with your muskets! It is the 
queen ! Long live the queen 1” 

“I thank M. D’Artagnan/’ said she, leaning out before 
the guns were fully lowered. “But I pray ye, add: 
‘Long live the king!’ who is with me. He, too, thanks 
you for your vigilance and readiness. All is well with us. 
But that dreadful bell.” 

The bell was silenced. Under D’Artagnan’s direction 
the shots were fired in the air as a salvo of joy, and the 
king revived, to find himself with Anne beside him and 
the outer air full of gunpowder and cheers. 

The next day all Paris related that the white queen 
had promenaded the palace and scared the soldiers and 
domestics. They quoted Nostradamus’ prognostications, 
so finely drawn up that, like all good oracles, you can 
deduce any conclusion from them. 

They considered that tlie king and queen were recon- 
ciled, and that they would have a long reign in harmony. 

But, whatever Paris believed, and the king, the cardi- 
nal was incredulous. He set his secret agents on the 
hunt. They found that it could not have been Donna Este- 
fania who gathered herbs for salad, since she had passed 
the night with some fellow countrywomen in the Saluta- 
tion Convent at Poissy, and that, after the turmoil, a 
little troop of well-mounted strangers had ridden off from 
the Tuileries with a woman among them. 

Lady Combalet assured her uncle that she and others. 


304 


A Loving Spouse. 

who would have baffled the odd reunion of king and 
queen, must have been drugged to be rendered inoffen- 
sive. 

Meanwhile, the burghers were prattling. 

‘'Phantomime, no phantom queens !” they said, over the 
supper; “it is just a neat little Spanish device to have 
her man sit up with her at a late snack ! Devilish fine pre- 
text to pretend there is a ghost at hand to keep your mate 
by you. Bless your innocence! My Joan played much 
the same trick on me when I was about the king’s age, and 
did not know that a good wife is too good for any man. 
Oh ! these women creatures I Even a crown on the fore- 
head does not repress their funny and clever ideas.” 

So, for a week, the city rang with the minstrels singing 
at all hours : “The Jolly Device of a Queen to Enjoy Her 
Sire’s Company All to Her Own Accord !” and it seemed 
as if Louis would pass down to posterity as a merry 
monarch, like his own father before him. 


CHAPTER XXVL 


SOME MAKE ARRESTS, OTHERS HAVE ARRESTS THRUST 
UPON THEM. 

This reunion of the king and his consort was to the lat- 
ter the most •felicitious of events, if she knew how to gain 
by it. 

And so perverse is fate, only within that hour she had 
placed in other hands a weapon to throw down the new 
structure. 

She had given to the Duchess of Chevreuse the proot 
that she added her fortunes to Anjou’s in the remaking of 
the Fleury forays. 

Her first thought was to recall it. Unfortunately, she 
was without assistants. Laporte and Guitaut were unable 
to aid her. 

She was weeping with rage at her helplessness, when 
Lady Sansforain came to console her, though in want of 
consolation herself. 

The moment D’Artagnan learned that the White Lady 
must have been personated by Lady Chevreuse, he di- 
vined for what she had penetrated the Louvre. 

He reasoned thus, and unfolded his theory to the 
baroness. 

The duchess relied on her fascinations to engage and 
retain adherents. So she had infatuated Chalais and it 


}o6 Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 

was to gratify her rather than Anjou that he again 
tempted the regicidal course. 

The duchess, practically banished into Lorraine, could 
hardly seek the count; and, like all those who might ex- 
pect the bearer of the royal order for arrest, he would, 
no doubt, station himself on the frontier so as to flee. 

If Chalais were to be the intermediary with Austria in 
the negotiations, it would be to him for transmissal that 
the queen’s token of alliance would be sent. 

Therefore, attach himself to Chalais, and he must learn 
where the precious deposit would be made. 

If the paper was dispatched direct to the Marquis of 
Laisques again, Chalais must know of it, since he and the 
marquis would have to debate upon it in their hands. 

“Your cousin, Chalais, is the key,” said D’Artagnan; 
“go see the queen and assure her that I will regain that 
letter if man can extract such a thing from those who 
know its worth.” 

“But it is not a letter,” said the lady; “I am assured 
that a pack of fortune-telling cards, with which the queen 
distracts herself, is alone missing.” 

“Card or letter, I will return it — if they let me return 
at all.” 

To save the queen, and by retaining the king in his 
changed mood to her was to annul this destructive missive. 
A queen’s rival would not offer to take this step and en- 
danger her darling in the act. 

Happily, Anne, who trusted few of her sex, believed in 
the good faith of this ward. She instructed her and re- 


Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 307 

yoked the message so that D’Artagnan felt that he had 
full powers. 

But Chalais, even more effectually than the duchess, 
concealed his tracks. The guardsman lost some time, 
when he thought to question his groom. Planchet had no 
acquaintances with the court prominencies, but he knew 
all the lackeys. He at once had an answer. 

“Chalais’ valet is in a fret,” said he. “Instead of ac- 
companying his master, he has been put on ‘board wages’ 
in Rieux House, until the lord’s return. So as he fears 
that his lord will not return and he wishes to join him in 
exile, from a certain affection for him, he keeps a point- 
ing finger on him.” 

“He knows where he is ?” cried the soldier, delightedly. 

“No, but he knows that he is to be at Forges within 
ten days.” 

Forges was a watering place at this period, what Vichy 
was in the following reign. It was convenient for access 
and flight. 

“I am going to Forges, but I must go alone. I hope 
you will not pine with grief, ‘on board wages,’ while I am 
gone.” 

He went to confer with Lady Sansforain on his de- 
parture. 

“Your man is right,” she agreed; “Lady Combalet has 
told me that the plot is going on. She says that the Duke 
of Anjou offers to return to Paris, if the Count of Sois- 
sons will guarantee him men and money to usurp the 
throne.” 


3o 8 Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 

Soissons, as governor of Paris, had cash and soldiers 
for such an effort. 

“Well, I believe Soissons capable.” 

“I believe him incapable personally. But this is the 
corroboration of your groom’s story: Anjou shilly-shal- 
lies, alleging that he must await news from Forges be- 
fore leaving his shelter.” 

“Qialais is there.” 

He pressed on with such help as was prepared on most 
roads for a queen’s messenger, and found in the Galen’s 
Gallipot, at the medicinal springs, a mysterious and noble 
stranger whom he soon set down as the object of his 
quest. 

Chalais had not received any message from Lady Chev- 
reuse. For the greater precaution, she had sent it so as 
to reach Laisques direct. Laisques had been spied closely 
by Count Rochefort, but he could not intercept this com- 
munication. 

Rochefort had traveled as a monk; he entered the Ca- 
puchin Convent, at Brussels, under power of a letter from 
Father Joseph, opening all the religious houses of Flan- 
ders to him. Joseph, too, had recommended a head one, as 
he knew that the superior was a friend of Austria. In- 
deed, Laisques came there, where Rochefort had crept 
in as a foe of the cardinal, who had hunted him out of 
France. 

He acted his part so badly that the marquis was caught. 

Their friendship came to fruition so that the plotter 


Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 309 

begged the poor fugitive to carry a packet to Chalais, 
called “the French Gentleman/' just over the line. 

Rochefort demurred, alleging that, though he loved to 
die on his natal soil, he did not wish to be hasty, and 
that he might be captured if he conferred with French 
gentlemen, no doubt fresh from the court. 

Laisques persuaded him, and he departed. 

On the road he looked into the packet confided to him, 
not resting assured on what the marquis had certified to 
him ; that it was not an incriminatory document. It was 
a pack of cards. 

Rochefort could not make anything of that, but on 
being sure that the French gentleman at the Gallipot was 
Chalais, he went to the mayor and captain of the post, and 
obtained a force to make an arrest. 

He was unable to forecast that D’Artagnan, another 
French gentleman fresh from Paris, would put up at the 
Gallipot also. 

Hence, with his guards in ambush, he was ushered into 
the presence of — D’Artagnan ! 

We have noted that the Gascon, in his debut, had met 
with the count, and, in a scuffle, lost a letter of introduc- 
tion ; since, he had tried to meet him in battle, but Roche- 
fort, though brave, was prudent when on duty. The cardi- 
nal, he said, would forgive a man everything but getting 
killed when on duty. 

This time, recognizing the supposed Capuchin by the 
scar face, and aware that he was facing an instrument 


310 Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 

of the prime minister’s, Louis pocketed his private griev- 
ance. He did not want Chalais arrested before he ac- 
quired the queen’s inculpating message. 

'Thunder !” exclaimed Rochefort, rarely embarrassed, 
but nonplused this time, “is it you in correspondence 

with ” He stopped, for he saw that D’Artagnan did 

not expect him or a message from Brussels. 

“If your coat means anything, you are a friend of 
Father Joseph’s,” said the Gascon, fencing to see how 
strong was his antagonist. 

“We are ‘brothers;’ you are not another, are you?” 

“No, but I am here because of his impulse.” 

“The deuce you are!” 

“Certainly; is not Lord Rieux his penitent ” 

“I do not know that Rieux is his penitent, but he is 
my best friend. Is he in danger of his life that his 
ghostly father sends you — away from him?” 

“No, but he is in danger because he has mixed himself 
up with Harcourt, Count Candale and others of the Aver- 
sionists; and this time they who espoused Anjou will not 
escape, as they did in the Fleury collapse, saving the two 
Vendomes. This time the small fry are to be taken in the 
net and, faith, they will stew a little, till the bones come 
easily out of the flesh.” 

Rochefort shuddered at this tolerably ghoulish pros- 
pect. 

“But Rieux would not look well, merely skin and bones. 
He is not like Harcourt, who could lose a few pounds 
and be improved.” 


Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 3 1 1 

“But Rieux must suffer if this plot comes to a head, 
since that head will be struck off.” 

“Rieux is not the man to enter his full length into a 
plot.” 

“If only his head gets in, it will be enough.” 

“But Rieux — Chalais ” stammered Rochefort, los- 

ing his head by a miracle. 

“Rieux has fallen in love, after several examples, with 
the new Chalais come to court.” 

“Oh !” exclaimed the pretended monk, who knew more 
than was ever held under one cowl except Joseph’s, “that 
baroness has a string of hearts at her girdle, like Queen 
Margaret, of Navarre?” 

“That is to say, Rieux has written letters to her which 
she placed with Chalais, her kinsman, for safety. Only, 
as Chalais chose to hurry to this place, to drink so many 
glasses of water — very nauseating, and not superior to 
any well of Paris — between us, he carried the letters with 
him.” 

“If that is all, and they are just love letters, what harm 
if Chalais is a walking letter bag?” 

“Well, a letter is how it is read. Without experience 
of the high courts, I believe that a slip of paper will send 
a man to the block as well as the king’s warrant, though 
simply written in love.” 

“I have heard of such blunders. But what makes you 
think that Chalais, granting he is here ” 

“Oh, he is here, in this inn, for I have followed him to 
house him.” 


312 Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 

“Will Chalais be arrested and his bag emptied out?’’ 

“Because I saw from my room that the little post of 
soldiers and the constables are mustered and come at 
your heels as far as the wheelwright’s, in whose shed 
they are concealed to wait for your signal.” 

“M. D’Artagnan, you executed the piece of horseman- 
ship most creditable in your life when you rode to town 
with my lord duke, after his escape from Fleury and 
Montheureux.” 

“Count, the plot was an attempt to ruin your lord be- 
cause of his great attachment to the king and our coun- 
try. The cardinal, by your leave, is so hated that his fall 
will follow our liege’s death. So he reigns by grace of 
this tolerably ephemeral monarch. He must conserve his 
life, and I have no other wish.” 

“We agree on one point. Let us make a little bar- 
gain.” 

“For France?” 

Rochefort pointed to a water bottle on the sideboard. 

“You see that decanter? That is France. There is 
some good stuff in there, but with that infernal stopper in, 
no good can come out. Now, that stopper is Chalais. 
Strike that out, and the good liquor can be diffused for all 
our benefit. If out of that, then comes peace ” 

“That is all I seek. Chalais’ cousin is not bewailing 
him, only she can have no peace, or your friend, Rieux, 
either, while in that bottle corked up by Chalais is his love 
letter or two.” 


Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 313 

fact, you wish to have an audience with Chalais?” 

“Without a file of soldiers by ” 

“To prevail on him to give up the terrers?” 

“Your perspicuity is such that I fully understand why 
the cardinal prices you highly.” 

“My dear, young sir, you shall see your Chalais, for, I 
believe you want the letters; only, why still is Rieux in 
such fear?” 

“Bother Rieux. I have crossed swords with him, and 
I bear him no good will ” 

“You have crossed swords with me, but, I trust, you 
bear me no ill will.” 

“It is the lady I would save from the consequences ” 

“Oh, la, la!” 

“Yes ; without her evincing a preference, you will un- 
derstand that a lady of many lovers, like the Duchess of 
Chevreuse, for example, is apt, in the complexity, to lose 
every one, and when one ” 

“Ah I there is always a one, true. 

“And when one is loved, admired, glorified, et 
cetera ” 

“No more,” interrupted Rochefort, concluding that this 
pointed to the king being ensnared by the queen’s god- 
daughter. “I am going to please you, the lady and — one 
whose name need not be trumpeted here.” 

“So I may see Count Chalais without a surrounding 
of constables and militia?” 

“As long as you do not advise him to jump out of a 


314 


Arrests Thrust Upon Them. / 

window or sneak out of the stables- way, proceed. Get 
the letters. Only, let me quit myself of my mission first.” 

“I forgot your robe. You are a missionary to the 
pagan, then?” 

“I believe, with you, that Master Chalais will change 
from the Galen’s Pot into the cells of the Bastile, and to 
lessen the deprivation of his ordinary amusements, I bring 
him from his friends a volume of the devil’s praying 
books.” 

“Cards?” cried D’Artagnan, with revived interest. 

“Odd in a pious fellow’s budget, but it was forced upon 
me. ^Forced cards,’ ha, ha!” 

Soldiers in the country and the mayor’s posse burn to 
distinguish themselves; D’Artagnan did not wish those 
poor fellows to suffer. Hardly had Rochefort, as the 
Franciscan left Chalais’ presence, having delivered his 
packet, than the other French gentleman from court en- 
tered in his turn. 

He announced himself as the envoy of his cousin, but, 
at the mention of Baroness Sansforain, helping Chalais 
to recall where he had seen this person, all the incidents of 
the unfortunate night of D’Artagnan’s exploit returned 
clearly. 

He stood puzzled by the immediate demand of Anne- 
Charlotte for the queen’s message, that pack of cards 
which Rochefort had but instantly handed him. 

But things were precipitating themselves upon him 
lately. 


Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 


315 


To give up this weapon, which might serve him well 
while aiding the king and cardinal to overthrow the 
queen, was injurious, but Talleyrand-Chalais was a noble 
and never did he prove his nobility plainer than thus 
acting. 

But at the moment of his going to return the object, 
both were startled by a tramp of men in the hall. 

D’Artagnan’s idea was that Rochefort had broken faith 
with him ; Chalais, that the young guardsman had been 
gulling him to give time for him to be made prisoner with 
what dispatches the messenger from Brussels had borne 
him in his hands. 

They both regarded each other suspiciously and both 
laid a grip on their swords. 

The gathering was the landlord and some friends who 
had learned that the soldiers were coming to arrest one or 
the other or both the mysterious French gentlemen hon- 
oring the Galen with their hazardous patronage ; they had 
begged him to anticipate the act by taking them in hand 
and so gain profit from the government against which 
they were leagued. 

Already the host saw himself thanked by the prime min- 
ister, and possibly the king in person. 

Chalais ran to the window, while D’Artagnan, to show 
that the attack was not fixed by him, barred the door. 

But the count saw the armed men coming up the street 
to the disorganization of the quiet drinkers of the chaly- 
beate waters, who stared as they marched by. 


)i6 Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 

Chalais recognized that he must either fall in a hand-to- 
hand fight with lowly knaves, or accept the alternative. 

But, while he had no choice about the fact, he could 
alter the head of it. 

‘'Open the door,” said he, and on the door opening and 
displaying the corridor full of the improvised warriors, 
he said, loudly: 

“Sir Knight of Artagnan,” handing him his sword, ‘^I 
constitute myself your prisoner.” 

The young soldier comprehended how adroit was this 
ruse. He took the sword and said as loudly: 

“Prisoner of the queen’s guards. Lower your weapons 
and snuff out your firedog matches. Count Chalais is 
prisoner of the queen.” 

Rochefort could not have planned the subterfuge more 
nicely. Chalais prisoner of the king was painful, since 
he had been the king’s next man. Prisoner of the cardi- 
nal, it was persecution, and one was almost warranted in 
trying to help him flee on the road ; but Chalais prisoner 
of the queen was a mock arrest, and who could doubt that 
he let himself be carried back to town for a sham trial 
and brilliant acquittal. 

So D’Artagnan had this distinguished company on his 
return, beginning with the force which Rochefort had 
provided of disbanded veterans, and continuing to press 
into service from the garrisons, so that he reached Paris 
with quite a regiment. 

Thence the prisoner was conveyed to Nantes, where he 
was tried. 


Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 317 

Contrary to ancient laws, the king appointed a special 
commission. 

The queen, having the pack of cards returned to her by 
her guardsman, through her ward, breathed the only tran- 
quil breath in the party involved. 

Gaston sought to flee, but as everybody was ready to 
turn state evidence, he resigned himself to useless pray- 
ers and cursing. Lady Chevreuse worked hard to pro- 
cure release, but no man would put himself forward 
against the king, who had been silent to Lady Sansforain’s 
appeal for her relative, and who had, in the judgment, 
struck out the plea for commutation of the penalty. 

Nevertheless, the king had been heard to say : 

'T am very unhappy.” 

But all hopes were crushed by the culprit himself. Into 
his cell descended an unidentified person, the gray cardi- 
nal or the red one, who brought away a paper signed 
by the prisoner. It was a complete confession. He ad- 
mitted his correspondence with Austria, with Spain and 
with the governor of Paris. But he no longer enveloped 
the queen in the web; D’Artagnan and Anne-Charlotte 
had saved her. 

Louis turned white at this evidence; he saw that revolt 
would have led to his ruin ; he called the cardinal his sole 
friend and let him carry out the decree. 

Nevertheless, there was promised a delay; two execu- 
tioners were entitled to perform the last act for a con- 
spirator ; the headsman of Nantes and the one from Paris, 
called the state, or royal deathsman. 


3i 8 Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 

Through a blunder, the one retired to the capital to 
leave his brother to enjoy his prerogative and the one 
local, understanding that his esteemed colleague of Paris 
would exercise his privilege, went off on a fishing excur- 
sion, which he had promised himself on his first va- 
cation. 

At this juncture a tall, dark man, calling himself an 
old soldier, offered to take their place. 

He was not strong looking, but appearances are deceit- 
ful; the executioner’s sword, though heavy, was a toy to 
him ; he struck, but only cleft the neck without severing it. 

“Give me another,” said he, “or I will never finish the 
king’s work.” 

This time he lopped off the head. 

He was the last man who exchanged a word with the 
culprit. 

“My man,” said Judge Marillac, giving him with his 
own hand a purse for having relieved authority of the 
grave dilemma of a condemned man and no executioner, 
“what did the count say to you ?” 

“That he no longer regretted this death, since he died 
foiling the king.” 

“In what way has he foiled his majesty?” 

“Why, his majesty vowed that Chalais should perish 
degraded by the common hangman, and as it is, he was 
slain by a gentleman. I am not a soldier, but the Knight 
of Vouvray!” 

“Then why did you lend yourself to this deception?” 


319 


Arrests Thrust Upon Them. 

“Because the king deprived me. of my situation at court 
and wanted to deprive me, too, of life; but, lo! he is not 
going even to have that satisfaction.” 

And then and there, before the tribunal, he drove a 
dagger deeply into his breast. 

In his dying throes, he farther confessed, but for the 
king’s ear only, that he was the instrument of Father 
Joseph in introducing the king into the queen’s suite to 
adore Lady Sansforain. 

“This is how I am served,” commented Louis, severely. 
“This discharged servant, whom I doomed, years ago, has 
actually slipped in and out of the palace ” 

“And strewn your majesty’s path with horse trippers,” 
added Richelieu, to account for another offense. 

“And I never knew.” 

Lady Sansforain made a final appeal on behalf of the 
family; the remains were allowed to be buried in the an- 
cestral vault. 

The cardinal-duke became sovereign-master from that 
death; royalty, eclipsed at the Henry IV. assassination, 
burst from the dark only at the rise of Louis XIV. 

Prince Gaston was dishonored, and the queen visited 
him with a contempt which never faded out; but, as it 
was desirable not to let him contract any foreign alliance, 
he was married to the heiress of the Montpensiers and 
elevated into the dukedom of Orleans. 

To have to thank the cardinal for this was the gratitude 
mixed with pain of the dog pelted with marrow bones. 

As for our hero, let a line or two of history acquaint us 


320 Arrests Thrust Upon Them, - 

with the success of his courtship of the Lady Anne-Char- 
lotte. 

“By his marriage with the Lady Anne-Charlotte, of 
Chanlevy, baroness of Sansforain, the lieutenant of 
royal musketeers, Louis D’Artagnan, had two sons,’^ etc. 

But more pertinently, D’Artagnan, promoted by the 
queen's warm returns for his recovering her cards, became 
sub-lieutenant of her guards, and accompanied that de- 
tachment of them figuring at the siege of La Rochelle. 
His adventures there are chronicled in our work : “The 
Three Musketeers," but for later facts we point to our 
sequel: “D’Artagnan’s Capture; or, the Reign of Riche- 
lieu." 


THE END. 



APR 9 1904 ;.*■ 


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